LIBRARY  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

PRINCETON,   N.   J. 

Presented  by 

Divxsioti i  J  r\  fa^  W 

Section .f...K.  I  O 

1873 
V.  I-Z:l 


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HISTORY  OF  RUSSIA, 


JFrom  rlje  earliest  Cimes  to  1880.     /:  ,'    ^^^^^'inc, 


ALFRED    RAMBAUD,  '^^^^-lA! 

CHIEF   OF   THE   CABINET   OF   THE    MINISTER    OF    PUBLIC   INSTRUCTION    AND    FINE   ARTS,  AT    PARIS; 

CORRESPONDING    MEMBER    OF    THE    ACADEMY    OF    SCIENCES    OF 

ST.    PETERSBURG;     ETC.,    ETC. 


THIS   WORK    HAS    BEEN    CROWNED    BY   THE    FRENCH    ACADEMY. 

TRANSLATED  BY  L.  B.  LANG. 

ED/TED    AND    ENLARGED    BY  NATHAN   HASKELL   DOLE. 
INCLUDING 

A  HISTORY  OF  THE  TURKO-RUSSIAN  WAR  OF  1^77-1^, 

FROM   THE    BEST  AUTHORITIES,    BY   THE    EDITOR. 
FULLY     ILLUSTRATED. 

three  volumes  bound  in  two. 

Vol.  L 
Vol.  IL  —  Part  I. 


BOSTON: 
H.   A.    BOLLES   AND   COMPANY, 

PUBLISHERS. 


Copyright,  1879. 
By   ESTES   and    LAURIAT. 


PREFACE. 


The  field  of  Russian  history  has  not  hitherto  seemed  to 
offer  great  attraction  for  the  student.  This  is  partly  due  to 
the  lack  of  interesting  and  reliable  works  upon  the  subject. 
It  is  now  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  since  any  history  of 
Russia  pretending  to  completeness  has  appeared  in  the  English 
language,  and  Kelly's  Compilation  in  the  Bohn  Collection, 
published  immediately  after  the  Crimean  War,  is  full  of 
prejudice  and  error.  The  abundance  of  materials  which  throw 
new  light  on  the  development  of  the  Empire,  the  labors  of  the 
faithful  and  conscientious  modern  Russian  historians,  have  been 
almost  entirely  neglected.  It  has  not  been  felt  to  be  essential 
for  the  well-educated  man  to  add  to  his  other  accomplishments 
a  complete  knowledge  of  Russian  history,  and  a  few  items  of 
general  information  have  completely  satisfied  him.  The  name 
of  Ivan  the  Terrible  has  seemed  to  him  typical  of  the  early 
Tsars,  and  by  its  very  sound  conjured  up  a  phantom  of  some- 
thing indefinitely  cruel  and  barbaric.  An  acquaintance  with 
Peter  the  Great,  "  the  giant,  the  wonder-worker,"  he  has  ])er- 
haps  made  through  the  medium  of  Voltaire.  But  however 
brilliant  Voltaire's  style  may  be,  it  does  not  suffice  to  cover  its 
superficial  and  untrustworthy  character.  And  the  study  of 
modern  European  history  has  led  to  more  or  less  familiarity 
with  Napoleon's  campaign  against  Moscow  and  the  details  of 
the  Crimean  War.  But  the  prominence  of  the  Eastern  Ques- 
tion and  the  portentous  growth  in  all  directions  of  the  vast 


iv  PREFACE. 

Empire  of  the  Russias,  threatening  the  Turk  in  his  sunny 
home  on  the  Bosphorus,  the  Enghshraan  in  his  Indian  do- 
main, the  Celestial  in  his  flowery  kingdom,  have  attracted 
universal  attention,  and  a  knowledge  of  general  Russian  his- 
tory is  almost  indispensable  if  one  would  understand  the  com- 
plicated relations  of  Russia  with  Europe.  The  influence  of 
the  Tatar  invasion,  the  growth  of  autocracy,  the  reforms 
effected  by  Peter  the  Great  and  his  successors,  the  policy  of 
emancipation  and  of  the  protection  of  Christians  in  Turkish 
dominions,  must  all  be  considered,  not  as  isolated  facts,  but  as 
legitimate  consequences  of  more  or  less  patent  causes. 

It  has  not  been  easy  to  find  authentic  material  in  anything 
but  the  Russian  language  for  such  study.  Mr.  Ralston  has 
published  some  excellent  lectures  on  early  times,  and  M.  Pros- 
per Merimee  wrote  a  thorough  monograph  on  the  Epoch  of 
the  False  Dmitri ;  various  sketches  of  Russian  history  can  be 
found  in  travels  and  other  works  on  Russia ;  the  industrious 
seeker  might  be  rewarded  by  studying  the  ponderous  volumes 
of  Levesque  or  Esneaux,  or  Bernhardi's  "  Geschichte  Russ- 
lands  "  ;  but  it  is  safe  to  say  that  there  has  hitherto  existed  no 
trustworthy,  unprejudiced,  and  complete  history  of  Russia  in 
either  English  or  Erench. 

When  the  "  Histoire  de  la  Russie,"  by  M.  Alfred  Rambaud, 
made  its  appearance,  it  was  immediately  welcomed  by  the 
press  of  both  countries  with  the  most  flattering  approval,  and 
it  was  also  crowned  by  the  Erench  Academy.  The  London 
Athenaeum  says  of  it :  — 

"  We  have  tlie  '  Histoire  de  la  Russie,'  by  M.  Alfred  Eambaud,  who, 
by  his  'Russie  E pique'  and  other  publications,  has  already  shown  him- 
self a  competent  scholar.  In  this  book  we  have  the  results  of  the 
researches  of  all  the  latest  Russian  historiographers  summarized ;  he 
has  especially  laid  under  contribution  the  voluminous  labors  of  Solovief 
and  Oustrialov,  and  the  less  ambitious  productions  of  Kostomarov  and 
Bestuzhev-Eioumin. 


PREFACE.  y 

"  The  various  theories  on  the  origin  of  Rurik  and  his  companions  arc 
clearly  set  forth,  and  a  wise  discretion  is  exercised  in  abridging  the 
tedious  story  of  the  struggles  between  the  early  Russian  principalities. 
Any  one  who  has  read  the  classical  Slavonic  histories  on  those  times 
must  remember  how  hopelessly  dreary  they  seem.  The  chapters  on  the 
Republics  of  Novgorod,  Pskov,  and  Viatka,  and  the  Lithuanian  Princi- 
pality are  very  well  done;  without  an  examination  of  their  relations 
to  early  Russian  history  it  becomes  uninteUigible,  and  probably  few 
Western  students  have  realized  how  slender  was  the  tie  which  bound 
the  latter  country  to  Poland.  The  culmination  at  Moscow  of  a  cen- 
tralized despotism  is  fully  brought  out,  and  the  reign  of  Ivan  the  Terri- 
ble is  necessarily  made  a  very  prominent  feature  in  the  book.  At  this 
point  Russian  history  becomes  especially  interesting  to  Englishmen, 
o-wing  to  our  commercial  dealings  with  the  tyrant,  and  monographs 
on  the  subject  have  been  written  by  Kostomarov  and  Youri  Tolstoi. 
The  pages  of  Hakluyt  teem  with  quaint  stories  of  the  adventures  of  our 
enterprising  countrymen.  As  M.  Rambaud  is  quite  familiar  with  Rus- 
sian literature,  he  occasionally  stops  in  the  course  of  his  narrative  to 
summarize  its  progress,  and  illustrates  historical  events  by  reference  to 
contemporary  bylinas!^  .... 

"A  great  deal  of  new  light  has  been  thrown  upon  the  period  of 
Catherine's  reign  ;  so  wide  and  careful  has  been  M.  Rambaud's  reading, 
that  he  has  laid  under  contribution  the  valuable  memoirs  and  other 

papers  recently  published  in  the  Russian  reviews  and  journals 

The  narrative  is  carried  down  to  the  latest  period 

"A  mass  of  useful  information  is  condensed  in  this  work;  it  is 
beyond  question  the  best  complete  history  of  Russia  which  has  appeared 
in  the  West.  In  the  author's  power  of  seizing  upon  salient  traits  of 
character,  and  selecting  picturesque  incidents,  the  book  reminds  us  very 
much  of  Mr.  Green's  English  History.  We  will  venture  to  prophesy 
that  it  will  become  the  work  on  the  subject  for  readers  in  our  part  of 
Europe. 

"  It  reflects  great  credit  upon  its  author,  and  well  deserves  to  be 
studied  by  all  who  care  to  instruct  themselves  in  Russian  history." 

The  Saturday  Review  declares  that  "  ]M.  Rambaud  is  never 
too  enthusiastic  to  be  fair,"  and  goes  on  to  say  :  "  The  value 

*  Historical  Ballads. 


vl  PEEFACE. 

of  a  work  like  this,  which  gives  us  in  an  unbroken  chain 
events  from  the  time  of  legend  and  almost  of  myth,  when  truth 
is  hard  to  be  reached,  from  the  scanty  amount  of  information, 
to  the  present  day,  when  multiplicity  of  sources  makes  truth 
equally  obscure,  cannot  be  overrated." 

Mr.  Ralston,  who  is  considered  one  of  the  most  thorough 
Russian  scholars  in  England,  adds  his  testimony  as  follows : 
"  We  gladly  recognize  in  the  present  volume  a  trustworthy 
history  of  Russia,  and  one  based  not  merely  on  what  foreigners 
have  written  about  it,  but  compiled  by  a  scholar  who  is  com- 
petent to  deal  with  the  works  which  Russian  historians  have 
recently  produced.  M.  Rambaud  has  long  been  known  as  a 
sound  authority  upon  all  subjects  connected  Avith  the  great 
Empire  of  w^hich  he  has  now  Avritten  the  history."  And 
finally,  we  select  from  many  other  flattering  notices  the  opinion 
of  Turgenief,  the  great  Russian  novelist,  that,  "  in  spite  of 
some  minor  faults,  this  is  far  superior  to  any  other  history 
accessible  to  Western  Europe." 

M.  Rambaud,  though  a  comparatively  young  man,  having 
been  born  in  eighteen  hundred  and  forty-two,  has  proved  him- 
self worthy  to  treat  the  difficult  subject  of  Russian  history  by 
his  other  historical  works,  by  his  frequent  visits  to  Russia,  and 
his  knowledge  of  the  Russian  language  and  literature. 

liis  development  of  the  early  and  complicated  periods  of 
the  appanaged  princes  could  hardly  be  excelled  ;  it  is  when 
he  reaches  modern  times  that  excessive  condensation  sometimes 
injures  the  style  of  the  book,  and  in  the  American  edition  the 
translation  has  been  supplemented  with  frequent  additions 
taken  from  the  original  w^orks  of  Ustrialof  and  Solovief  when- 
ever perspicuity  and  interest  could  be  thus  served.  Hermann 
and  Von  Bernhardi  have  also  been  found  useful  in  expanding 
or  explaining  incomplete  or  doubtful  passages. 

The  American  edition  also  includes  a  continuation  of  the 
history  through  the  last  war  with  Turkey  and  the  relations 


PREFACE.  vii 

with  Afghanistan  and  the  East.  Lack  of  liistorical  perspective 
makes  it  difficult  satisfactorily  to  deal  with  events  so  near  at 
hand,  but  it  is  hoped  that  accuracy  and  fairness  will  be  found 
in  the  treatment  of  the  events  of  the  last  few  years.  The  best 
possible  authorities  have  been  studied,  and  as  information 
has  already  been  largely  collected  and  classified,  the  danger 
of  erroneous  judgment  and  important  omissions  is  greatly 
lessened. 

Throughout  the  whole  work  the  Russian  words  scattered 
freely  in  the  original  French  have  been  translated,  so  far  as 
was  practicable,  and  the  simplest  possible  mode  of  spelling 
both  Polish  and  Russian  names  has  been  adopted,  so  as  to 
facilitate  the  proper  pronunciation.  In  many  cases  Russian 
plurals  have  been  substituted  for  English  plurals  of  Russian 
words,  and  in  accordance  with  the  best  modern  English  usage 
the  letters  ui  have  taken  the  place  of  the  meaningless  y  in  such 
words  as  Kruilof.  The  terminations  vitch  and  vna  indicate 
the  relation  of  son  and  daughter :  Peter  Alexiemtcli,  Peter  son 
of  Alexis ;  Elisabeth  Petrovna,  Elisabeth  daughter  of  Peter. 

The  Russian  calendar  has  not  adopted  the  Gregorian  re- 
form ;  for  every  date,  therefore,  it  is  necessary  to  indicate 
M^hether  it  is  after  the  old  or  new  style.  For  important  dates, 
both  styles  are  generally  given.  In  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury the  Russian  style  is  eleven  days  behind  ours  ;  in  the 
nineteenth  century  it  is  twelve  days.  Thus  the  date  of  the 
death  of  Catherine  the  Second  is  given  as  the  sixth  or 
seventeenth  of  November,  —  a  difference  of  eleven  days,  since 
the  event  happened  in  the  eighteenth  century.  But  we  say 
the  revolution  of  the  fourteenth  or  twenty-sixth  of  December, 
eighteen  hundred  and  twenty-five,  as  we  are  speaking  of  the 
nineteenth  century. 

The  greatest  pains  have  been  taken  to  render  the  text  free 
from  errors,  a  complete  index  has  been  prepared,  illustrations 
have  been  freely  used,  and  it  is  hoped  that  it  will  prove  to  be 
in  reality  a  Popular  History  of  Russia. 


CONTENTS. 


VOLUME    I. 

CHAPTER  I. 

GEOGRAPHY   OF   RUSSIA. 

Eastern  and  Western  Europe  compared:  Seas,  Mountains,  Climate. — Russian  Rivers 

and  History.  —  The  Four  Zones:  Geographical  Unity  of  Russia  .      .        .        17-31 

CHAPTER  II. 

ETHNOGRAPHY   OF   RUSSIA. 

Greek  Colonies  and  the  Scythia  of  Herodotus.  —  The  Russian  Slavs  of  Nestor.  — 
Lithuanian,  Finnish,  and  Turkish  Hordes  in  the  Ninth  Century.  —  Division 
of  the  Russians  proper  into  three  Branches.  —  How  Russia  was  colonized     .     32-50 

CHAPTER  III. 

PRIMITIVE   RUSSIA:    THE   SLAVS. 

Religion  of  the  Slavs.  —  Funeral  Rites.  —  Domestic  and  Political  Customs :  the 
Family  ;  the  Mir,  or  Commune;  the  Volost,  or  Canton;  the  Tribe. —  Towns. — 
Industry.  —  Agriculture 51-59 

CHAPTER  IV. 

THE    VARIAGI :    EORMATION    OF    RUSSIA  ;    THE    FIRST    EXPEDITIONS    AGAINST 

CONSTANTINOPLE. 

The  Northmen  in  Russia:  Origin  and  Customs  of  the  Variagi. — The  First  Russian 
Princes :  Rurik,  Oleg,  Igor.  —  Expeditious  against  Constantinople.  —  Olga  : 
Christianity  in  Russia.  —  Sviatoslaf. — The  Danube  disputed  between  the  Rus- 
sians and  Greeks 60-76 

.    CHAPTER   V. 

THE    CLOVIS   AND    CHARLEMAGNE    OF   THE    RUSSIANS,   SAINT   VLADIMIR   AND    lARO- 

SLAF    THE    GREAT. 
973-1054. 

Vladimir  (972-1015).  —  Conversion  of  the  Russians.  —  laroslaf  the  Great  (1016  - 
1054). — -Union  of  Russia.  —  Splendor  of  Kief. — Variag-Russian  Society  at 
the  Time  of  laroslaf.  —  Progress  of  Christianity.  —  Social,  Political,  Literan', 
and  Artistic  Results 77-95 


yiii  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

KUSSIA   DIVIDED   INTO   PKINCIPALITIES.  —  SUPREMACY   AND   FALL   OF   KIEF. 

1054-1169. 

Distribution  of  Russia  into  Principalities.  —  Unity  in  Division.  —  The  Successors  of 
laroslaf  the  Great.  —  Wars  about  the  Right  of  Headship  of  the  Royal  Family, 
and  the  Throne  of  Kief.  —  Vladimir  Monomakh.  —  Wars  between  the  Heirs  of 
Vladimir  Monomakh.  —  Fall  of  Kief 96-112 

CHAPTER  VII. 

RUSSIA   AFTER   THE    FALL   OF   KIEF.  —  POWER   OF   SUZDAL   AND    GALLICIA. 
1169-1264. 

Andrei  Bogphubski  of  Suzdal  (1157  -  1171;)  and  the  First  Attempt  at  Autocracy. —  luri 
the  Second  (1212  - 1238).  —  Wars  with  Novgorod.  —  Battle  of  Lipetsk  (1216).  — 
Foundation  of  Nijni-Novgorod  (1220).  —  Roman  (1188  -  1205)  and  his  Son  Daniel 
(1205-1264)  in  Gallicia 113-126 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE   RUSSIAN    REPUBLICS  :    NOVGOROD,    PSKOF,   AND   VIATKA.  , 
Until  1224. 

Novgorod  the  Great. —  Struggles  with  the  Princes. —  Novgorodian  Institutions. — 

Commerce.  —  The  National  Church.  —  Literature.  —  Pskof  and  Viatka     .     127-142 

CHAPTER  IX. 

THE   LIVONIAN   KNIGHTS.  —  CONQUEST    OF    THE    BALTIC    PROVINCES   BY   THE 

GERMANS. 
1187-123'7. 

Conversion  of  Livonia.  —  Rise  of  the  Livonian  Knights.  —  Union  with  the  Teutonic 

Knights 143-148 

CHAPTER  X. 

THE   TATAR   MONGOLS.  —  ENSLAVEMENT   OF  RUSSIA. 
1224-1264. 

Origin  and  Customs  of  the  Mongols.  —  Battles  of  the  Kalka,  of  Riazan,  of  Kolomna, 
and  of  the  Sit.  —  Conquest  of  Russia.  —  Alexander  Nevski.  —  The  Mongol  Yoke. 
—  Influence  of  the  Tatars  on  Russian  Development  ....     149  - 173 

CHAPTER  XL 

THE    LITHUANIANS  :    CONQUEST  OF  WESTERN  RUSSI 
1240-1430. 

The  Lithuanians.  —  Conquests  of  Mindvog  (1240-1263),  of  Gedimin  (1315-1840), 
and  of  Olgerd  (1345- 1377).  — lageOo.  —  U.nion  of  Lithuania  with  Poland 
(1386).  — The  Grand  Prince  Vitovt  (1392-1430).  —  Battles  of  the  Vorskla 
(1399)  and  of  Tannenberg  (1410) 174-184 


CONTENTS.  ix 

CHAPTER  XII. 

THE    GRAND   PRINCES   OF   MOSCOW  :     ORGANIZATION   OF  EASTERN  RUSSIA. 
1303-1463. 

Origin  of  Moscow.  —  Dauiel.  —  luri  Dauielovitch  (1303-1325)  and  Ivan  Kalita 
(1328-  1341).  —  Contest  witli  the  House  of  Tver.  —  Simeon  the  Proud  and  Ivan 
the  Debonair  (1341  -  1359).  —  Dmitri  Donsiioi  (1363  -  1389).  —  Battle  of  Kuii- 
kovo.  —  Vasili  Dmitrievitch  and  Vasili  the  Blind  (1389  -  1462)         .         .     185  -  215 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

IVAN   THE    GREAT,    THE    AUTHOR   OF   RUSSIAN   UNITT. 
1462-1505. 
Submission  of  Novgorod.  —  Reunion  of  Tver,  Rostof,  and  laroslavl.  —  Wars  with 
the  Great  Horde  and  Kazan.  —  End  of  the  Tatar  Yoke.  — Wars  with  Lithuania.  — 
Western  Russia  as  far  as  the  Soja  renonquered.  —  Marriage  with  Sophia  Palsco- 
logus.  —  Greeks  and  Italians  at  the  Court  of  Moscow       ....     216-234 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

VASILI     IVANOVITCH. 
1505-1533. 

Reunion  of  Pskof,  Riazan,  and  Novgorod-Severski. — Wars  with  Lithuania.  —  Acqui- 
sition of  Smolensk. — Wars  with  the  Tatars.  —  Diplomatic  Relations  with 
Europe 235-243 

CHAPTER  XV. 

IVAN    THE    TERRIBLE. 
1533-1584. 

Minority  of  Ivan  the  Fourth.  —  He  takes  the  Title  of  Tsar  (1547).  —  Conquest  of 
Kazan  (1552)  and  of  Astrakhan  (1554).  —  Contests  with  the  Livoninn  Order, 
Poland,  the  Tatars,  Sweden,  and  the  Russian  Aristocracy.  —  The  English  in 
Russia.  —  Conquest  of  Siberia        . 244  -  280 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

MUSCOVITE   RUSSIA   AND   THE   RENAISSANCE. 
1533-1584. 

The  Muscovite  Government.  —  The  Kin  and  the  Men  of  the  Tsar.  —  The  Prikazui.  — 
Rural  Classes.  —  Citizens.  —  Commerce.  —  Domestic  Slavery.  —  Seclusion  of 
Women.  —  The  Renaissance :  Literature,  Popular  Songs,  and  Cathedrals.  — 
Moscow  in  the  Sixteenth  Century 281  -  310 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

TUE     SUCCESSORS    OF     IVAN     THE      TERRIBLE  :     FEODOR     IVANOVITCH     AND     BORKS 

GODUNOF. 
1584-1605. 
Feodor  Ivanovitch  (1584- 1598). —  The  Peasant  attached  to  the  Glebe  — The  Patri- 
archate. —  Boris  Godunof  (1598  -  1605).  —  Appearance  of  the  False  Dmitri     31 1  -  32" 


X  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE    TIME    OF   THE    TROUBLES. 

1605-1613. 

Murder  of  the  False  Dmitri.  —  Vasili  Shuiski.  —  The  Brigand  of  Tushiao.  —  Vladislas 
of  Poland.  —  The  Poles  at  the  Kreml. — National  Rising.  —  Miuin  and  Pojarski. 
—  Election  of  Mikhail  Romauof    , 327-344 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

THE   EOMANOFS  :    MIKHAIL   FEODOROVITCH    AND    THE    PATRIARCH   PHILARET. 

1613-1645. 

Restorative  Measures. — End  of  the  Polish  War.  —  Relations  with  Europe. — The 

States-General 345-356 

CHAPTER  XX. 

■WESTERN   RUSSIA   IN   THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY. 
1569-1645. 

The  Political  Union  of  Lublin  (1569)  and  the  Religious  Union  (1595).  —  Complaints 

of  White  Russia.  —  Risings  in  Little  Russia   ......     357-369 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

ALEXIS   MIKHAILOVITCH    AND    HIS   SON   FEODOR. 
1645-1683. 

Early  Years  of  Alexis.  —  Seditions.  —  Khmelnitski.  —  Conquest  of  Smolensk  and 
Eastern  Ukraina. — Stenko  Razin.  —  Ecrlesiastical  Reforms  of  Nikon.  —  The 
Precursors  of  Peter  the  Great.  —  Reign  of  Feodor  Alexievitch  (1676  -  1682)     370  -  400 


VOLUME    II. 

CHAPTER   I. 

PETER   THE    GREAT:     EARLY   YEARS. 
1683-1709. 

Regency  of  Sophia  (1682-1689).  —  Peter  [.  —  Expeditions  against  Azof  (1695- 
1696).  —  First  Journey  to  the  West  (1697).  —  Revolt  and  Destruction  of  the 
Streltsui.  —  Contest  with  the  Cossacks  :  Revolt  of  the  Don  (1706) ;  Mazeppa 
(1709) 13-50 

CHAPTER   II. 

PETER   THE    GREAT  :     STRUGGLE    WITH    CHARLES    THE    TWELFTH. 
1700- 1T09. 

Battle  of  Narva  (1700)  :  Conquest  of  the  Baltic  Provinces.  —  Charles  the  Twelfth 

invades  Russia  :  Battle  of  Poltava  (1709) 51-75 


CONTENTS.  xi 

CHAPTER   III. 

PETER  THE  GREAT  :  THE  REFORMS. 
General  Character  of  the  Reforms  :  the  Collaborators  of  Peter  the  Great.  —  Social 
Reforms  :  the  Tchia  ;  Emancipation  of  "Women.  —  Administrative,  Military, 
and  Ecclesiastical  Reforms.  — •  Economic  Reforms  :  Manufactures.  —  Practical 
Character  of  the  Schools  founded  by  Peter.  —  Foundation  of  Saiut  Petersburg 
(1703) 76-105 

CHAPTER  IV. 

PETER   THE    GREAT  :     LAST    YEARS. 
1709-1735. 

War  with  Turkey  :  Treaty  of  the  Pruth  (1711).  —  Jom-ney  to  Paris  (1717).  — Peace 
of  Nystad  (1721)  :  Conquests  on  the  Caspian.  —  Family  Affairs  :  Evdokia ;  Trial 
of  Alexis  (1718)  ;  Catherine 100-126 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE    WIDOW    AND     GRANDSON    OF    PETER    THE     GREAT  :     CATHERINE    THE 

FIRST    AND    PETER    THE    SECOND. 

1725-1730. 

The  Work  of  Peter  the  Great  continued  by  Catherine.  —  Menshikof  and  the  Dolgo- 

rukis.  —  Maurice  de  Saxe  in  Kurlaud    .         .  .....     127  -  133 

CHAPTER  VI. 

THE    TWO    ANNAS  :     REIGN     OF    ANNA    IVANOVNA,    AND    REGENCY   OF   ANNA 

LEOPOLDOVNA. 
1730-1741. 

Attempt  at  an  Aristocratic  Constitution  (1730):  the  "  Bironovshtchina."  —  Suc- 
cession of  the  Polish  Crown  (1733  - 1735)  and  War  with  Turkey  (1735-1739).  — 
Ivan  the  Sixth.  —  Regency  of  Biren  and  Anna.  —  Revolution  of  1741      .     134-156 

CHAPTER  VII. 

ELISABETH    PETROVNA. 
1741-1763. 

Reaction  against  the  Gennans  :  War  with  Sweden  (1741  - 1743).  —  Austrian  Succes- 
sion :  War  against  Frederic  the  Second  (1756  -  1762).  —  Reforms  under  Elisa- 
beth: French  Influence 157-173 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

PETER   THE    THIRD    AND    THE    REVOLUTION     OF    SEVENTEEN     HUNDRED   AND 

SIXTY-TWO. 

Government  of  Peter  the  Third,  and  the  Alliance  with  Frederic  the  Second.  — Rev- 
olution of  Seventeen  Hundred  and  Sixty-two :  Catherine  the  Second  .     174-  182 


Xii  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   IX. 

CATHERINE    THE    SECOND  :     EAKLY   YEARS. 
1763-1780. 

End  of  the  Seven  Years'  War:  Intervention  in  Poland. —First  Turkish  War :  First 
Partition  of  Poland  (1772) :  Swedish  Revolution  of  Seventeen  Hundred  and 
Seventy-two.  —  Plague  at  Moscow.  —  Pugatchef 183  -  202 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS. 


VOLUME    T. 

Page 

Peter  the  Great Frontispiece 

Kirghiz  Tatars 20 

Russian  Village 23 

Kalmuck  Tatars 29 

The  Hermitage 34 

Great  Russian  Types    .     .     ,     . 46 

Tatar  Shamans 52 

View  of  Kief 66 

Castle  on  tlie  Danube 72 

Ancient  Gate  in  Kolosvar 72 

Russian  Churches 95 

Seal  of  Novgorod 128 

Types  of  Novgorod 135 

Monastery  of  lurief 137 

Revel 145 

View  of  Riga 161 

Cossack  Cavalry 169 

Lithuanians 174 

Kreml  of  Moscow 187 

Monastery  of  St.  Sei'gius  at  Troitsa 194 

Metropolitan  of  Moscow 214 


XIV  LIST   OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Page 

View  of  Novgorod 221 

View  of  Kazan 226 

Arms  of  Russia 232 

Mount  Athos 242 

The  Red  Place 266 

Siberia 277 

Bosnian  Merchant 282 

Cathedral  of  Saint  Sophia  at  Novgorod 288 

Palace  of  Facets       291 

The  Funeral  of  a  Russian  Peasant 292 

Church  Marriage  Ceremony 302 

Red  Gate 305 

Saint  Nicholas  Gate 307 

Church  of  Vasili  the  Blessed 309 

Tsar  Kolokol 310 

Dievitchi  Monastery 318 

View  in  Woods 344 

Fortress  of  Schliisselburg 349 

Clergy  of  the  Russian  Church 365 

Women  of  Pskof 374 

New  Jerusalem  Monastery 392 


VOLUME    II. 

Sailing  Vessels  of  the  Baltic  Fleet 28 

Kronstadt 58 

Triumphal  Arch  of  Narva 74 

Russian  Veterans 90 

Nevski  Prospekt 94 

Peter's  Cottage \     .     .  102 


LIST   OF  ILLUSTRATIONS.  Xv 

Page 

Chateau  of  Peterhof 124 

Academy  of  Sciences 128 

Frederick  the  Great  of  Prussia 162 

Street  in  Saint  Petersburg 168 

Theatre  in  Saint  Petersburg 170 

Voltaire 182 

Young  Valakhiau  Woman 194 

Diderot  and  Catherine  the  Second 204 


NOTE. 

The  perfect  simplicity  of  the  metric  system  of  weights  and  measures, 
and  its  immense  superiority  to  all  others,  make  its  universal  adoption  a 
mere  matter  of  time.  It  is  already  used  by  upwards  of  twenty-seven 
different  nations,  a-iid  in  the  majority  the  system  is  obligatory.  It  is 
legalized  in  the  United  States,  and  the  action  of  Congress,  of  the  various 
State  legislatures,  of  national  and  State  scientific  and  educational  asso- 
ciations, is  so  rapidly  spreading  a  knowledge  of  it  that  even  in  the 
opinion  of  its  few  opponents  its  adoption  is  inevitable.  Consequently 
in  the  American  edition  of  the  History  of  Russia  the  metric  system  has 
been  retained,  and  a  simple  table  of  equivalents  is  added. 

TABLE  OF  THE  METRIC  SYSTEM  OF  WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES. 

The  unit  of  length  is  the  meter,  a  measure  equivalent  to  one  ten-millionth  part 
of  the  distance  from  the  pole  to  the  equator. 

1  meter  =  10  decimeters  =  100  centimeters  =  1000  mllimeters  ==  39.37  inches. 
1000  meters  =  1  kilometer  =  3280  feet  10  inches,  or  three  fifths  of  a  mile. 

The  unit  of  capacity  is  the  liter,  which  is  the  space  included  in  a  cubic  decimeter. 
1  liter  =  10  deciliters  =  100  centiliters  =  1000  miimiters  =  1.06  U.  S.  quarts. 
10  liters  =  1  dekaliter,  10  dekaliters  =  1  hektoliter  =  about  3  bushels. 

The  unit  of  weight  is  the  gram,  which  is  the  weight  of  one  cubic  centimeter  of 
distilled  water  at  the  freezing  point. 

1  gram  =  10  decigrams  =  100  centigrams  =  1000  milligrams  =  15.4  grains. 
1  kilogram  or  kilo  =:  1000  grams  =  a  liter  of  waters  2.205  lbs.  avoirduiTOis. 
1  sq.  meter  =  10.75  sq.  ft.     1  sq.  kilometer  :=  0.39  sq.  mile. 

For  ordinary  purposes  it  may  be  remembered  that  the  meter,  liter,  and 
half-kilo  are  one  tenth  larger  than  the  yard,  quart,  and  pound  respec- 
tively, and  that  thirty  centimeters  make  a  foot  and  thirty  grams  a 
pound. 

The  Russian  ruble  =  100  kopeks  =  from  $0.70  to  $0.80. 

The  value  of  the  ruble  depends  upon  whether  it  is  coin  or  paper. 

The  Russian  verst  =  1067  meters,  or  about  two  thirds  of  a  mile. 

The  Russian  pud  =  16.26  kilos  =  36.08  lbs. 

NATHAN   HASKELL   DOLE. 
Boston,  May  1,  1879. 


^  71923 


HISTORY    OF    RUSSIA, 


jTroni  tije  lEatUest  Etmrs  to  1880. 


Vol.  II. 


HISTORY    OF    RUSSIA, 


CHAPTER  I. 

PETER  THE  GREAT :  EARLY  YEARS. 

1682-1T09. 

Regency  of  Sophia  (1682-1689). — Peter  I.  —  Expeditions  against 
Azof  (1695-1696).  —  Fikst  Journey  to  the  West  (1697).  —  Re- 
volt AND  Destruction  of  the  Streltsui.  —  Contest  with  the 
Cossacks:  Revolt  of  the  Don  (1706);  Mazeppa  (1709). 


REGENCY  OF  SOPHIA.  — PETER  I. 

ALEXIS  MIKHAILOVITCH  had  by  his  first  wife, 
Maria  Miloslavski,  two  sons,  Feodor  and  Ivan,  and  six 
daughters ;  by  his  second  wife,  Nataha  Naruishkin,  two 
daughters  and  one  son,  who  was  afterwards  the  Tsar,  Peter  I. 
As  he  was  twice  married,  and  the  kinsmen  of  each  wife  had, 
according  to  custom,  surrounded  the  throne,  there  existed  in 
the  palace  two  factions,  which  were  brought  face  to  face  by 
the  death  of  Peodor.  The  Miloslavskis  had  on  their  side  the 
claim  of  seniority,  the  number  of  royal  children  left  by  Maria, 
and,  above  all,  the  fact  that  Ivan  was  the  elder  of  the  two 
surviving  sons ;  but,  unluckily  for  them,  Ivan  was  notoriously 
imbecile  both  in  body  and  mind.  On  the  side  of  the  Na- 
ruishkins  was  the  interest  excited  by  Peter's  precocious  intelli- 
gence, and  the  fact  that  Natalia  Naruishkin  held  the  position 
of  legal  head  of  all  the  royal  family,  which,  according  to 
Russian  law,  the  title  of  "  Tsaritsa  Dowager  "  gave  her.     Both 


14  HISTORY   OF   EUSSIA.  [Chap.  I. 

factions  had  for  some  time  been  occupied  in  taking  their 
measm^es  and  recruiting  their  partisans.  Who  should  succeed 
Feodor?  Was  it  to  be  the  son  of  the  Miloslavski,  or  the  son 
of  the  Naruishkin  ?  The  Miloslavskis  were  first  defeated  on 
legal  grounds.  Taking  the  incapacity  of  Ivan  into  considera- 
tion, the  boyars  and  the  Patriarch  loakim  proclaimed  the 
young  Peter,  then  nine  years  old,  Tsar.  The  Naruishkins 
triumphed :  Natalia  became  Tsaritsa-Regent,  recalled  from 
exile  her  foster-father,  Matveef,  and  surrounded  herself  by  her 
brothers  and  uncles. 

The  only  means  of  revenge  which  the  Miloslavskis  could 
take  lay  in  revolt,  but  they  vi'ere  without  a  head  ;  for  it  was 
impossible  for  Ivan  to  take  the  lead.  The  eldest  of  his  six 
sisters  was  thirty-two  years  of  age,  the  youngest  nineteen  ;  the 
most  energetic  of  them  was  Sophia,  who  w^as  twenty-five. 
These  six  princesses  saw  themselves  condemned  to  the  dreary 
destiny  which  awaited  the  younger  children  of  the  Tsar  ;  they 
saw  that  they  would  be  obliged  to  renounce  all  hopes  of  mar- 
riage, to  have  nothing  in  anticipation  but  old  age,  after  a  life 
spent  in  the  seclusion  of  the  terem,  and,  to  crown  all,  to  be  sub- 
jected to  the  authority  of  a  step-mother.  All  that  they  in  the 
fulness  of  youth  had  in  prospect  was  the  cloister.  They,  how- 
ever, were  longing  for  a  life  of  activity ;  and  though  imperial 
etiquette  and  Byzantine  manners,  prejudices,  and  traditions  for- 
bade them  to  appear  in  public,  even  Byzantine  traditions  offered 
them  models  to  follow.  Had  not  Pulcheria,  daughter  of  the 
Emperor  Arcadins,  reigned  at  Constantinople  in  the  name  of 
her  brother,  the  incapable  Theodosius?  Had  she  not  con- 
tracted a  nominal  marriage  with  the  brave  Marcian,  who  was 
her  sword  against  the  barbarians  ?  Here  was  the  ideal  that 
Sophia  could  propose  to  herself,  —  to  be  a  maiden  emperor. 
To  emancipate  herself  from  the  rigorous  laws  of  the  terem, 
to  force  the  "  twenty-seven  locks,"  as  the  song  expresses  it,  to 
raise  the  veil  that  covered  her  face,  to  appear  in  public  and 
meet  the  looks  of  men,  needed  energy,  cunning,  and  patience 


1083-1709.]  PETER   THE   GREAT.  15 

that  could  wait  and  be  content  to  proceed  by  successive  efforts. 
Sophia's  first  step  was  to  appear  at  Feodor's  funeral,  though  it 
was  not  the  custom  for  any  but  the  widow  and  the  heir  to  be 
present.  There  her  litter  encountered  that  of  Natalia  Naruish- 
kin,  and  her  presence  forced  the  Tsaritsa  Mother  to  retreat. 
She  surrounded  herself  with  a  court  of  educated  men,  who 
publicly  praised  her,  encouraged  and  excited  her  to  action. 
Simeon  Polotski  and  Silvester  Medviedef  wrote  verses  in  her 
honor,  recalled  to  her  the  example  of  Pulcheria  and  Olga, 
compared  her  to  the  virgin  Queen  Elizabeth  of  England,  and 
even  to  Semiramis ;  we  might  think  we  were  listening  to  Vol- 
taire addressing  Catherine  the  Second.  They  played  on  her 
name  Sophia,  which  means  wisdom,  and  declared  that  she  had 
been  endowed  with  the  quality  as  well  as  the  title.  Polotski 
dedicated  to  her  the  "  Crown  of  Eaith,"and  Medviedef  his  "Gifts 
of  the  Holy  Spirit."  The  terem  offered  the  strangest  contrasts. 
There  Moliere's  "  Malade  Imaginaire  "  M^as  acted,  and  the  audi- 
ence was  composed  of  the  heterogeneous  assembly  of  popes, 
monks,  nuns,  and  old  pensioners  such  as  formed  the  courts  of 
an  ancient  Tsaritsa.  In  this  shifting  crowd  there  were  some 
useful  instruments  of  intrigue.  The  old  pensioners,  while 
telling  their  rosaries,  served  as  emissaries  between  the  palace 
and  the  town,  carried  messages  and  presents  to  the  turbulent 
streltsui,  and  arranged  matters  between  the  Tsarian  ladies 
and  the  soldiers.  Sinister  rumors  were  skilfully  disseminated 
through  Moscow :  Feodor,  the  eldest  son  of  Alexis,  had  died, 
the  victim  of  conspirators  ;  the  same  lot  was  doubtless  reserved 
for  Ivan.  What  was  to  become  of  the  poor  princesses,  in 
whose  veins  flowed  the  blood  of  kings  ?  At  last  it  was  pub- 
licly announced  that  a  brother  of  Natalia  Naruishkin  had 
seized  on  the  crown  and  seated  himself  on  the  throne,  and 
that  Ivan  had  been  strangled.  Love  and  pity  for  the  son  of 
Alexis,  and  the  indignation  excited  by  the  news  of  the  usur- 
pation, immediately  caused  the  people  of  Moscow  to  revolt,  and 
the  ringleaders  cleverly  directed  the  movement.     The  tocsin 


16  HISTOEY  OF  EUSSIA.  [Chap.  I. 

sounded  from  the  four  hundred  churches  of  the  "holy  city"; 
the  regiments  of  the  streltsui  took  up  arms,  and  twenty  thou- 
sand of  them,  followed  by  an  immense  crowd,  marched  to  the 
Kreml,  dragging  cannon  behind  them,  wnth  drums  beating 
and  matches  lighted.  Natalia  Naruishkin  had  only  to  show 
herself  on  the  Red  Staircase,  accompanied  by  her  son  Peter, 
and  Ivan,  who  was  reported  to  be  dead.  Their  mere  appear- 
ance sufficed  to  contradict  all  the  calumnies.  The  streltsui 
hesitated,  seeing  they  had  been  deceived.  A  clever  harangue 
of  Matveef,  who  had  formerly  commanded  them,  and  the  ex- 
hortations of  the  Patriarch  shook  them  further.  The  revolt 
was  almost  appeased :  the  Miloslavskis  had  missed  their  aim, 
for  they  had  not  yet  succeeded  in  putting  to  death  the  people 
of  whom  they  Avere  jealous.  Suddenly  Prince  Mikhail  Dol- 
goruki,  chief  of  the  prikaz  of  the  streltsui,  began  to  inveigh 
against  the  rioters  in  the  most  violent  language.  This  ill- 
timed  harangue  awoke  their  fury ;  they  seized  Dolgoruki,  and 
flung  him  from  the  top  of  the  Red  Staircase  upon  their  pikes. 
They  stabbed  Matveef  under  the  eyes  of  the  Tsaritsa ;  then 
they  sacked  the  palace,  murdering  all  who  fell  into  their  hands. 
Peter  Saltuikof,  whom  they  mistook  for  Afanasi  Naruishkin, 
Natalia's  brother,  was  tlu^own  from  a  window  on  to  the  points 
of  their  lances.  When  they  discovered  their  error,  they 
brought  his  body  to  his  aged  father,  the  boyar  Peter  Mikhailo- 
vitch,  who  said,  "  It  is  God's  will,"  and  gave  them  brandy  to 
drink.  Then  after  a  long  search  they  discovered  Afanasi  him- 
self in  the  Church  of  the  Resurrection,  and  they  dragged  him 
out  and  brutally  murdered  him.  Prince  Romodanovski  also, 
the  aged  conqueror  of  Tchigirin,  found  no  mercy  at  their 
hands ;  his  stern  discipline  was  remembered  against  him. 
The  following  day  the  revolt  began  anew ;  the  German  quar- 
ter was  visited  by  a  band  of  the  streltsui  in  search  of  Daniel 
Gaden,  a  baptized  Jew  who  had  been  physician  to  the  late 
Tsar,  and  whom  they  charged  with  poisoning  him.  Not  find- 
ing him  at  home,  they  wreaked  their  vengeance  on  his  son,  a 


1682-1709.]  PETER  THE    GREAT.  17 

lad  of  twenty  years,  and  also  on  another  imperial  physician, 
Daniel's  friend.  They  finally  found  Daniel  himself  and  put 
him  to  death.  But  they  were  not  yet  satisfied.  The  Tsar- 
itsa's  three  younger  brothers  had  luckily  escaped  from  Mos- 
cow, disguised  in  peasant's  clothing,  but  her  father,  Kirill,  was 
forced  by  them  to  go  into  a  monastery,  where  he  took  the 
name  of  Kiprian,  and  her  eldest  brother,  Ivan,  was  torn  from 
her  arms,  tortured,  and  cut  to  pieces.  Historians  show  us 
Sophia  interceding  for  the  victims  on  her  knees,  but  an  un- 
derstanding between  the  rebels  and  the  Tsarevna  certainly 
existed ;  the  streltsui  obeyed  orders.  The  following  davs 
were  consecrated  to  the  purifying  of  the  palace  and  the  ad- 
ministration, and  on  the  seventh  day  of  the  revolt  they  sent 
their  commandant,  the  prince-boyar  Khovanski,  to  declare  that 
they  Avould  have  two  Tsars,  —  Ivan  at  the  head  and  Peter  as 
coadjutor ;  and  if  this  were  refused,  they  would  again  rebel. 
The  boyars  of  the  council  deliberated  on  this  proposal,  and 
the  greater  number  of  them  were  opposed  to  it.  In  Russia 
the  absolute  power  had  never  been  shared,  but  the  orators 
who  spoke  in  Sophia's  favor  cited  many  examples  both  from 
sacred  and  profane  history :  Pharaoh  and  Joseph,  Arcadius 
and  Honorius,  Basil  the  Second  and  Constantine  the  Eisrhth  : 
but  the  best  of  all  the  arguments  were  the  pikes  of  the 
streltsui. 

Sophia  had  triumphed  :  in  sixteen  hundred  and  eighty-two 
she  began  to  reign  in  the  name  of  her  two  brothers,  Ivan  and 
Peter.  She  made  a  point  of  showing  herself  in  public,  at  pro- 
cessions, solemn  services,  and  dedications  of  churches.  At  the 
UspiensU  Sobor,  while  her  brothers  occupied  the  place  of  the 
Tsar,  she  filled  that  of  the  Tsaritsa  ;  she  raised  the  curtains, 
however,  and  boldly  allowed  the  Patriarch  to  come  into  her 
presence  with  the  censer.  When  the  raskolniki  challenged  the 
heads  of  the  orthodox  church  to  discussion,  she  wished  to  pre- 
side and  hold  the  meeting  in  the  open  air,  at  the  Lohnoe  Miesto 
on  the  Red  Place.     There  was,  however,  so  much  opposition, 


18  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  I. 

that  she  was  forced  to  call  the  assembly  in  the  Palace  of 
Facets,  and  sat  behind  the  throne  of  her  two  brothers,  present 
though  not  in  sight.  The  double-seated  throne  used  on  tliose 
occasions  is  still  preserved  at  Moscow ;  there  is  an  opening  in 
the  back,  hidden  by  a  veil  of  silk,  and  behind  this  sat  Sophia. 
This  singular  piece  of  furniture  is  the  symbol  of  a  govern- 
ment previously  unknown  to  Russia,  composed  of  two  visible 
Tsars  and  one  invisible  sovereign. 

The  streltsui,  however,  felt  their  prejudices  against  female 
sovereignty  awaken.  They  were  offended  at  the  contemptu- 
ous way  in  which  the  Tsarevna  treated  the  ancient  customs. 
Sophia  had  already  become  in  their  eyes  a  scandalous  per- 
son. Another  cause  of  misunderstanding  was  the  support  she 
gave  to  the  State  Church,  as  reformed  by  Nikon,  Avhile  the 
streltsui  and  the  greater  part  of  the  people  held  to  the  "  old 
faith."  She  had  arrested  certain  "  old  believers,"  who,  at. the 
discussion  in  the  Palace  of  Pacets,  had  challenged  the  patri- 
archs and  orthodox  prelates,  and  she  had  executed  the  ring- 
leader Nikita,  surnamed  Pnstosviat  or  Tartuffe,  who  had  openly 
called  the  Patriarch,  bishops,  and  priests,  wolves  and  servants 
of  Antichrist,  and  in  the  heat  of  discussion  had  actually  laid 
violent  hands  on  the  Archbishop.  Khovanski,  chief  of  the 
streltsui,  whether  from  sympathy  with  the  "  heresy,"  or  whether 
he  wished  to  please  his  subordinates,  affected  to  share  their 
discontent.  The  Court  no  longer  felt  itself  safe  at  Moscow,  and 
removed  to  Kolomenskoe.  Here  it  was  noised  abroad  that 
Khovanski  was  coming  with  the  streltsui  for  the  pm^pose  of 
destroying  the  imperial  family,  massacring  the  boyars,  re-dis- 
tributing the  land  among  the  lower  classes,  and  making  himself 
Tsar.  Contemporary  records  say  that  this  rumor  was  invented 
by  Miloslavski  in  order  to  ruin  Khovanski.  At  all  events 
Sophia,  with  the  Tsaritsa  and  the  two  young  princes,  took 
refuge  in  the  fortified  Monastery  of  Troitsa,  and  sent  letters  to 
all  the  cities  summoning  the  boyars  and  men-at-arms  to  aid  in 
repressing  the  revolt  of  the  streltsui  and  Khovanski.    Prom  all 


1682-1709.]  PETER  THE   GEEAT.  19 

sides,  from  near  and  far,  from  laroslavl,  Kolomna,  Riazan, 
Kaluga,  and  other  cities,  came  the  nobles  with  their  follow- 
ers ;  their  numbers  are  said  to  have  amounted  to  a  hundred 
thousand  men  eager  to  take  vengeance  on  the  hated  streltsui. 
Khovanski  and  his  son  Andrei  were  deceived  by  flattering  let- 
ters of  invitation,  and,  accompanied  by  a  body-guard,  were  on 
their  way  to  join  the  imperial  family,  when  they  were  arrested 
on  the  seventeenth  of  September,  and  brought  to  the  village 
of  Vozdvizhenskoe,  where,  without  any  form  of  trial,  they  were 
both  put  to  death.  Khovanski 's  younger  son,  Ivan,  immedi- 
ately incited  the  streltsui  to  rise  and  destroy  the  murderers  of 
their  beloved  commander ;  but  they,  perceiving  their  weak- 
ness, and  learning  of  the  great  army  collected  at  Tro'itsa,  with 
the  usual  fickleness  of  a  popular  militia,  suddenly  passed 
from  the  extreme  of  insolence  to  the  extreme  of  humility. 
Two  or  three  thousand  of  them  marched  to  Troitsa,  in  the 
guise  of  suppliants,  with  cords  round  their  necks,  carrying  axes 
and  blocks  for  the  death  they  expected.  The  Patriarch  con- 
sented to  intercede  for  them ;  they  signed  a  paper  acknowl- 
edging their  error,  and  allowed  themselves  to  be  disarmed. 
Sophia  then  had  thirty  of  the  ringleaders  executed,  and  par- 
doned the  rest. 

Sophia,  having  got  rid  of  her  accomplices,  governed  by  aid 
of  lier  two  favorites,  —  Shaklovitui  and  Prince  Vasih  Galit- 
suin.  Shaklovitui  was  the  new  commander  of  the  streltsui, 
a  man  of  great  energy,  who  had  risen  from  the  position  of  a 
serf  to  be  a  clerk  of  the  council,  and  who  was  completely  de- 
voted to  Sophia's  interests.  Galitsuin  has  become  the  hero' 
of  an  historic  school  which  balances  his  genius  with  that  of 
Peter  the  Great,  in  the  same  way  as  in  Prance,  Henry,  Duke 
of  Guise,  has  been  exalted  at  the  expense  of  Henry  the 
Fourth.  All  the  foreign  representatives  at  the  Court  of  Mos- 
cow spoke  of  him  in  terms  of  the  highest  admiration  as  a 
marvel  of  intelhgence.  He  spoke  Latin  fluently ;  he  did  not 
expect  his  guests  to  drink  undue  quantities  of  brandy;  in  ftict, 


20  HISTORY   OF   EUSSIA.  [Chap.  I. 

he  was  a  gentleman  in  the  western  sense  of  the  word.  He  was 
the  special  favorite,  the  intimate  friend  of  Sophia,  the  director 
of  her  foreign  policy,  and  her  right  hand  in  military  affairs. 
Ian  Sobieski,  King  of  Poland,  and  the  Emperor  Leopold  were 
anxious  to  organize  a  solemn  league  between  Russia,  Poland, 
Venice,  and  Austria,  against  the  Turks  and  Tatars,  and  in  May, 
sixteen  hundred  and  eighty-four,  the  Barons  Zirovski  and  Von 
Blomberg  visited  Moscow  to  prove  to  the  Russian  Court  the 
necessity  of  uniting  with  the  rest  of  Christendom  against  their 
common  enemy.  But  Galitsuin  and  Sophia  would  not  come 
to  any  agreement  with  the  envoys  until  the  Poles  had  formally 
renounced  their  claims  upon  Smolensk  and  Kief.  Pinally,  in 
sixteen  hundred  and  eighty-six  the  arrangements  Avere  com- 
pleted, and  an  offensive  and  defensive  alliance  between  the 
powers  was  signed  in  the  audience  chamber  under  papal  aus- 
pices, and  with  the  greatest  solemnity.  In  sixteen  hundred 
and  eighty-seven  lakof  Dolgoruki  and  lakof  Muishetski  disem- 
barked at  Dunkirk,  as  envoys  to  the  Court  of  Louis  the  Four- 
teenth. They  were  not  received  very  favorably :  the  King  of 
France  was  not  at  all  inclined  to  make  war  against  the  Turks  ; 
he  was,  on  the  other  hand,  the  ally  of  Mahomet  the  Fourth,  who 
was  about  to  besiege  Vienna  while  Louis  blockaded  Luxem- 
burg. Mahomet,  in  fact,  besieged  Vienna  with  an  army  of 
upwards  of  two  hundred  thousand  men  ;  but  his  incapacity 
prevented  him  from  taking  advantage  of  his  position,  and  the 
whole  plan  of  the  campaign  was  thrown  out  by  the  interven- 
tion of  Russia  and  Ian  Sobieski  in  favor  of  Austria.  The 
Russian  ambassadors  received  orders  to  re-embark  at  Havre, 
without  going  further  south. 

The  government  of  the  Tsarevna  still  persisted  in  its  war- 
like projects.  In  return  for  an  active  co-operation  against  the 
Ottomans,  Poland  had  consented  to  ratify  the  conditions  of  the 
Treaty  of  Andrusovo,  and  to  sign  a  perpetual  peace  in  sixteen 
hundred  and  eighty-six.  A  hundred  thousand  Muscovites, 
under  the  command  of  Prince  Galitsuin,   and  fifty  thousand 


11S3-1709.]  PETER  THE   GREAT.  21 

Little  Russian  Cossacks,  under  tlie  orders  of  the  lietman  Samoi- 
lovitch,  marched  against  the  Crimea  in  sixteen  hundred  and 
eighty-seven.  The  army  suffered  greatly  in  the  southern  steppes, 
as  the  Tatars  had  fired  the  grassy  plains.  Galitsuin  was  forced 
to  return  without  having  encountered  the  Turks  at  all.  Great 
numbers  of  the  horses  died  of  starvation,  and  the  army,  fear- 
fully reduced  in  numbers,  finally  reached  the  place  from  which 
it  started.  Starvation  and  disease  had  been  arrayed  on  the 
side  of  their  enemies.  In  order  to  direct  public  attention  from 
Galitsuin,  who  was  a  skilful  pohtician,  but  no  general,  the 
blame  of  the  unsuccessful  campaign  was  laid  upon  Samo'ilo- 
vitch,  who  was  accused  of  having  set  the  steppes  on  fire,  and 
of  being  in  treasonable  league  with  the  Turks.  Without  any 
examination  he  was  deprived  of  his  command,  and  having 
been  arrested  in  Galitsuin's  tent,  whither  he  had  gone  without 
suspicion,  he  was  sent  with  his  son  to  Moscow,  and  from  there 
to  Siberia,  where  he  died.  Mnzeppa,  who  owed  to  Samoi'lo- 
vitch  his  appointment  as  Secretary-at-war,  and  whose  denun- 
ciations had  chiefly  contributed  to  his  downfall,  was  appointed 
his  successor.  The  army  was  reanimated  by  praise  and  re- 
wards. Sophia  sent  chains  and  medals  of  more  or  less  value  to 
all  the  officers  and  even  the  soldiers,  and  the  streltsui  received 
each  a  gold  kopek  as  a  mark  of  honor.  Galitsuin  himself  was 
presented  with  a  heavy  gold  chain,  and  enjoyed  even  greater 
confidence  than  before.  In  the  spring  of  sixteen  hundred  and 
eighty-nine  the  Muscovite  and  Ukrainian  armies,  commanded 
by  Galitsuin  and  Mazeppa,  again  set  out  for  the  Crimea.  The 
second  expedition  was  hardly  more  fortunate  than  the  first ; 
they  got  as  far  as  Perekop,  and  were  then  obliged  to  retreat 
without  even  having  taken  the  fortress.  This  double  defeat 
did  not  hinder  Sophia  from  preparing  for  her  favorite  a  tri- 
umphal entry  into  Moscow.  In  vain  Peter  forbade  her  to 
leave  the  palace ;  she  braved  his  displeasure  and  headed  the 
procession,  accompanied  by  the  clergy  and  the  images  and 
followed  by  the  army  of  the  Crimea,  admitted  the  generals  to 


2.2  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  T. 

kiss  her  hand,  and  distributed  glasses  of  brandy  among  the 
officers.  Peter  left  Moscow  in  answer,  and  retired  to  the  villao;e 
of  Preobrazhenskoe,  where  he  refused  to  admit  Gahtsuin  into 
his  presence.  The  foreign  pohcy  of  the  Tsarevna  was  marked 
by  another  display  of  weakness.  By  the  Treaty  of  Nertchinsk 
she  restored  to  the  Chinese  Empire  the  fertile  regions  of  the 
Amur,  which  had  been  conquered  by  a  handful  of  Cossacks, 
and  razed  the  fortress  of  Albazin,  where  these  adventurers  had 
braved  all  the  forces  of  the  East.  On  all  sides  Russia  seemed 
to  retreat  before  the  barbarians. 

Meantime  Peter  was  growing.  Tlis  precocious  faculties, 
his  quick  intelligence,  and  his  strong  Avill  awakened  alike  the 
hopes  of  his  partisans  and  the  fears  of  his  enemies.  As  a 
child  he  loved  nothing  so  nmch  as  drums,  swords,  and  mus- 
kets. He  learned  history  by  means  of  colored  prints  brought 
from  Germany.  Zotof,  his  master,  a  man  of  low  condition, 
who  had  neither  intellectual  nor  moral  qualities  calculated  to 
win  respect,  and  whom  he  afterwards  made  "  the  archpope  of 
fools,"  taught  him  to  read.  Among  the  heroes  held  up  to 
him  as  examples,  we  are  not  surprised  to  find  Ivan  the  Terri- 
ble, whose  character  and  position  offer  so  much  analogy  to  his 
own.  "  When  the  Tsarevitch  was  tired  of  reading,"  says  M. 
Zabielin,  "  Zotof  took  the  book  from  his  hand,  and,  to  amuse 
him,  would  himself  read  the  great  deeds  of  his  father,  Alexis 
Mikha'ilovitch,  and  those  of  the  Tsar  Ivan  Vasilievitch, — their 
campaigns,  their  distant  expeditions,  their  battles  and  sieges ; 
how  they  endured  fatigues  and  privations  better  than  any 
common  soldier ;  what  benefits  they  had  conferred  on  the 
empire,  and  how  they  extended  the  frontiers  of  Russia." 
Peter  also  learned  Latin,  German,  and  Dutch.  He  read  much 
and  widely,  and  learned  a  great  deal,  though  without  method. 
Like  Ivan  the  Terrible,  he  was  a  self-taught  man.  He  after- 
wards complained  of  not  having  been  instructed  according  to 
rule.  This  was  perhaps  a  good  thing.  His  education,  Hke 
that  of  Ivan  the  Fourth,  was  neglected,  but  at  least  he  was  not 


1682-1709.]  PETEll   THE   GKEAT.  23 

subjected  to  the  enervating  influence  of  the  terem,  —  he  was 
not  cast  in  that  dull  mould  which  produced  so  many  idiots  in 
the  royal  family.  He  "  roamed  at  large,  and  wandered  in  the 
streets  with  his  comrades."  The  streets  of  jMoscow  at  that 
period  were,  according  to  M.  Zabielin,  the  worst  school '  of 
profligacy  and  debauchery  that  can  be  imagined;  but  they 
were,  on  the  whole,  no  worse  for  Peter  than  the  palace.  He 
met  there  something  besides  mere  jesters ;  he  encountered 
new  elements  which  had  as  yet  no  place  in  the  terem,  but 
contained  the  germ  of  the  regeneration  of  Russia,  tie  came 
across  Russians  who,  though  they  may  have  been  unscrupu- 
lous, were  also  unprejudiced,  and  who  could  aid  him  in  his 
bold  reform  of  the  ancient  society.  He  there  became  ac- 
quainted with  Swiss,  English,  and  German  adventurers,  —  with 
Lefort,  with  Gordon,  and  with  Timmermann,  who  initiated 
him  into  European  civilization.  His  Court  was  composed  of 
Lvof  Naruishkin ;  of  Boris  Galitsuin,  Vasili's  younger  cousin, 
who  was  his  special  director,  and  had  undertaken  never  to 
flatter  him  ;  of  Andrei  Matveef,  who  had  a  marked  taste  for 
everything  European ;  and  of  Dolgoruki,  at  whose  house  he 
first  saw  an  instrument  for  taking  observations  from  the  stars 
called  an  astrolabe.  He  played  at  soldiers  with  his  young 
friends  and  his  grooms,  and  formed  them  into  the  "  battalion 
of  playmates,"  who  manoeuvred  after  the  European  fashion,  and 
became  the  kernel  of  the  future  regular  army.  He  learned  the 
elements  of  geometry  and  fortification,  and  constructed  small 
citadels,  which  he  took  or  defended  with  his  young  warriors 
in  those  fierce  battles  which  sometimes  counted  their  wounded 
or  dead,  and  in  which  the  Tsar  of  Russia  was  not  always 
spared.  Walking  one  day  with  Franz  Timmermann  in  the 
villa  of  Ismailof,  he  found,  among  other  curiosities  which  had 
belonged  to  his  uncle,  a  foreign  boat,  and  he  became  greatly 
interested  in  it.  Timmermann  told  him  that  it  was  an  English 
model,  and  when  used  with  a  sail  would  go  both  with  and 
against  the  wind.     Peter  inquired  where  he  could  find  a  man 


24  HISTOKY   OF  EUSSIA.  [Chap.  I. 

who  could  teach  him  how  to  manage  it.  Timmermann  suggested 
Brandt  the  Dutchman,  who  built  the  young  Tsar  a  boat  on  the 
lauza,  and  taught  him  the  use  of  it.  He  who  formerly,  owing 
to  a  fright  when  a  child,  had  such  a  horror  of  the  water  that 
he  could  not  make  up  his  mind  to  cross  a  bridge,  became  a 
determined  sailor :  he  guided  his  boat  first  on  the  lauza,  then 
on  the  pond  of  Ismailof,  and  finally  on  the  lake  of  Pereiaslavl. 
Already  Peter  dreamed  of  the  sea,  in  spite  of  the  terrors  of  his 
mother,  Natalia,  who  was  filled  with  the  prejudices  of  her  early 
training,  and  saw  in  his  love  for  war  and  ship-building  and 
innovation  only  mischief  and  even  ruin. 

"  The  child  is  amusing  himself,"  the  courtiers  of  Sophia 
affected  to  observe ;  but  these  amusements  disquieted  her. 
Each  day  added  to  the  years  of  Peter  seemed  to  bring  her 
nearer  to  the  cloister.  In  vain  she  proudly  called  herself 
"  autocrat " ;  she  saw  her  step-mother,  her  rival,  lifting  up  her 
head.  Galitsuin  confined  himself  to  regretting  that  they  had 
not  known  better  how  to  profit  by  the  revolution  of  sixteen  hun- 
dred and  eighty-two ;  but  Shaklovitui,  who  knew  he  must  fall 
with  his  mistress,  said  aloud,  "  It  would  be  wiser  to  put  the 
Tsaritsa  to  death  than  to  be  put  to  death  by  her."  Sophia  could 
save  herself  only  by  seizing  the  throne,  —  but  who  would 
help  her  to  take  it?  The  streltsui  ?  But  the  result  of  their 
last  rising  had  chilled  them  considerably.  Sophia  herself, 
while  trying  to  bind  this  formidable  force,  had  broken  it,  and 
the  streltsui  had  not  forgotten  their  chiefs  beheaded  at  Troi'tsa. 
Now  what  did  Shaklovitui,  Sophia's  emissary,  propose  to 
them  ?  He  read  them  a  letter  from  the  regent  accusing  Peter 
of  introducing  German  customs,  of  disturbing  the  religion  of 
the  country,  and  of  threatening  the  uiost  faithful  servants  of 
the  crown  with  death.  He  advised  them  again  to  attack  the 
palace;  to  put  Lvof  Naruishkin,  Boris  Galitsuin,  and  other 
partisans  of  Peter  to  death ;  to  arrest  his  mother,  and  to  expel 
the  Patriarch.  They  trusted  that  Peter  and  Natalia  would 
perish  in  the  tumult.     The  streltsui  remained  indiff'erent,  and 


16S2-1709.]  PETEE   THE    GREAT.  25 

Sophia,  affecting  to  think  her  Ufe  threatened,  fled  to  the  Die- 
vitchi  Monastery,  and  sent  them  letters  of  entreaty.  "  If  thy 
days  are  in  peril,"  tranquilly  replied  the  streltsui,  "  there  must 
be  an  inquiry."  Shaklovitui  could  hardly  collect  four  hundred 
of  them  at  the  Kreml. 

The  struggle  began  between  Moscow  and  Preobrazhenskoe, 
the  village  with  the  prophetic  name  which  means  the  Trans- 
figuration or  Regeneration.  Two  streltsui  warned  Peter  of 
his  sister's  plots,  and,  for  the  second  time,  he  sought  an  asy- 
lum at  Troitsa.  It  was  then  seen  who  was  the  true  Tsar  ;  all 
men  hastened  to  range  themselves  around  him  :  his  mother, 
his  armed  squires,  the  "  battalion  of  playmates,"  the  foreign 
officers,  and  even  the  streltsui  of  the  regiment  of  Sukharef 
The  Patriarch  also  took  the  side  of  the  Tsar,  and  brought  him 
moral  support,  as  the  foreign  soldiers  had  brought  him  mate- 
rial force.  The  partisans  of  Sophia  were  cold  and  irresolute  ; 
the  streltsui  themselves  demanded  that  her  favorite,  Shaklovi- 
tui, should  be  sm-rendered  to  the  Tsar.  She  had  to  implore  the 
mediation  of  the  Patriarch.  Shaklovitui  was  first  put  to  the 
torture  and  made  to  confess  his  plot  against  the  Tsar,  and 
then  decapitated.  Medviedef  was  at  first  only  condemned  to 
the  knout,  and  banishment  for  heresy,  but  he  acknowledged 
that  he  had  intended  to  take  the  place  of  the  Patriarch  and  to 
marry  Sophia ;  he  was  dishonored  by  being  imprisoned  with 
two  sorcerers  condemned  to  be  burned  alive  in  a  cage,  and 
was  afterwards  beheaded.  Vasili  Galitsuin  was  charged  with 
having  allowed  Sophia  to  take  the  title  of  Autocrat,  and  with 
having  occasioned  great  losses  in  men  and  money  in  his  Cri- 
mean campaign.  It  was  with  great  difficulty  that  his  cousin 
succeeded  in  getting  the  death-penalty  commuted.  He  was 
deprived  of  his  property,  and  exiled  with  his  son  Alexis  to 
Pustozersk.  It  was  a  cruel  misfortune  that  Peter  was  thus 
deprived  of  the  services  of  this  truly  great  and  talented  Rus- 
sian. According  to  De  la  Neuville,  "  he  caused  a  magnificent 
college  to  be  constructed  of  stone  ;  he  brought  from  Greece  a 


26  HISTOEY   OF   EUSSIA.  [Chap.  I. 

score  of  learned  men  and  a  multitude  of  valuable  books  ;  he 
encouraged  the  nobles  to  educate  their  children,  and  he  al- 
lowed them  to  send  them  to  the  Latin  colleges  of  Poland.  He 
advised  them  in  other  instances  to  engage  Polish  tutors  ;  h'3 
gave  foreigners  permission  freely  to  come  and  go,  which  had 
never  before  been  the  custom  in  this  empire.  He  desired  also 
that  the  nobility  of  the  country  should  have  the  advantage  of 
travel,  and  should  learn  to  wage  war  in  distant  lands.  In 
short,  he  wislied  to  people  the  waste  places,  to  enrich  the  des- 
titute, of  savages  to  make  men,  of  cowards  to  make  heroes,  and 
to  transform  cottages  into  marble  palaces."  But  his  treason 
was  too  deep  to  allow  him  to  be  pardoned,  and  Peter  lost  the 
greatest  man  that  Russia  had  as  yet  produced.  The  young 
Tsar  treated  Sophia  at  first  with  some  forbearance,  but  she 
attempted  to  escape  into  Poland,  and  henceforth  remained 
in  the  Dievitchi  Monastery,  subjected  to  a  hard  captivity. 
Though  Ivan  continued,  after  sixteen  hundred  and  eighty-nine, 
to  reign  conjointly  with  his  brother,  yet  Peter,  who  was  then 
only  seventeen,  governed  alone,  surrounded  by  his  mother, 
the  Naruishkins,  the  Dolgorukis,  and  Boris  Galitsuin. 

Sophia  had  freed  herself  from  the  seclusion  of  the  terem,  as 
Peter  had  emancipated  himself  from  the  seclusion  of  the  pal- 
ace to  roam  the  streets  and  navigate  rivers.  Both  had  behaved 
scandalously,  according  to  the  ideas  of  the  time, —  the  one 
haranguing  soldiers,  presiding  over  councils,  walking  with  her 
veil  raised  ;  the  other  using  the  axe  like  a  carpenter,  plying 
his  oars  like  a  Cossack  of  the  Don,  brawhng  with  foreign 
adventurers,  and  fighting  with  his  grooms  in  mimic  battles. 
But  to  the  one  her  emancipation  was  only  a  means  of  obtain- 
ing power ;  to  the  other  the  emancipation  of  Russia,  like  his 
own  emancipation,  Avas  the  end.  He  wished  the  nation  to 
shake  off  the  old  trammels  from  which  he  had  freed  himself. 
Sophia  remained  a  Byzantine,  Peter  aspired  to  be  a  European. 
In  the  conflict  between  the  Tsarevna  and  the  Tsar,  progress 
was  not  on  the  side  of  the  Dievitchi  Monastery. 


1682 -1709.]  PETER   THE    GREAT.  27 


EXPEDITIONS   AGAINST    AZOF.— FIRST   JOURNEY    TO 

THE  WEST. 

In  August,  sixteen  hundred  and  ninety-three,  Peter,  accom- 
panied by  Lefort,  Zotof,  and  a  suite  of  more  than  a  hundred 
persons,  made  a  journey  to  Arkhangel.  There,  deaf  to  the 
advice  and  prayers  of  his  mother,  who,  under  the  influence 
of  the  Patriarch  loakim,  tried  in  vain  to  bring  him  to  reason, 
he  gazed  on  that  sea  which  no  Tsar  had  ever  looked  on.  He 
ate  with  the  merchants  and  the  officers  of  foreign  navies ;  he 
breathed  the  air  which  had  come  from  the  West.  He  estab- 
lished a  dock-yard  in  which  the  first  regularly  constructed 
Russian  merchant-ship  was  built.  This  same  ship  was  also 
the  first  to  display  the  Russian  flag  in  foreign  ports.  Peter 
even  dared  the  angry  waves  of  this  unknown  ocean  in  a  voy- 
age which  lasted  five  days,  and  the  following  year,  after  the 
death  of  his  mother,  Natalia,  when  he  returned  to  Arkhangel, 
in  making  an  excursion  to  the  Slovetski  Monastery,  he  ahnost 
perished  in  a  storm.  Fully  expecting  to  meet  his  end,  he 
took  the  last  sacrament,  but  persistently  kept  his  place  at  the 
helm.  Nothing  could  have  saved  him,  had  not  the  skipper, 
Antip  Panof,  pushed  him  away  with  the  words,  "  I  understand 
this  better  than  thou,"  and  brought  the  vessel  in  safety  to  the 
island,  where  Peter,  in  gratitude,  erected  a  wooden  cross  with 
an  inscription  in  Dutch.  He  also  embraced  the  brave  skip- 
per, gave  him  a  pension,  and  presented  him  with  his  suit  of 
clothes,  which  was  thoroughly  soaked  with  the  salt  water. 
This  experience  did  not  prevent  the  "  skipper  Peter  Alexie- 
vitch"  from  again  putting  to  sea,  and  bringing  the  Dutch  ves- 
sels back  to  the  Holy  Cape.  Unhappily,  the  White  Sea,  by 
which,  since  the  time  of  Ivan  the  Fourth,  the  English  had  en- 
tered Russia,  is  ice-bound  in  winter.  In  order  to  open  perma- 
nent commimications  with  the  West,  with  civilized  countries, 
it  was  necessary  for  Peter  to  establish  himself  on  the  Baltic  or 
the  Black  Sea.     But  the  first  belonged  to  the  Swedes  and  the 


28  mSTOEY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  I. 

second  to  the  Turks,  while  the  Caspian  was  in  the  hands  of 
the  Persians.  Who  was  first  to  be  attacked  ?  The  treaties 
conchided  with  Poland  and  Austria,  as  well  as  policy  and 
religion,  urged  the  Tsar  against  the  Turks,  and  Constanti- 
nople has  always  been  the  point  of  attraction  for  orthodox 
Russia.  Peter  shared  the  sentiments  of  his  people,  and  had 
the  enthusiasm  of  a  crusader  against  the  infidel.  Notwith- 
standing his  ardent  wish  to  travel  in  the  West,  he  took  the 
resolution  not  to  visit  foreign  lands  till  he  could  appear  as  a 
victor.  Twice  had  Galitsuin  failed  in  his  expeditions  against 
the  Crimea ;  Peter  determined  to  attack  the  barbarians  by 
the  Don,  and  besiege  Azof,  which  had  once  been  conquered 
by  the  Cossacks  for  his  grandfather,  the  Tsar  Mikhail.  It  Avas 
the  key  of  the  sea  which  bears  the  same  name ;  from  its  walls 
the  Turks  made  their  plundering  expeditions,  and  if  the  Rus- 
sians could  get  it  into  their  power,  it  would  afford  them  a 
foothold  for  further  operations.  The  army,  amounting  to 
a  hundred  thousand  men,  was  divided  into  several  sections, 
which  were  commanded  by  three  generals,  Golovin,  Gordon, 
and  Lefort,  who  were  to  act  with  the  "  bombardier  of  the 
Preobrazhenski  regiment,  Peter  Alexievitch."  This  regi- 
ment, as  well  as  three  others,  had  sprung  from  the  "  amuse- 
ments "  of  Preobrazhenskoe,  —  the  Semenovski,  the  Botusitski, 
and  Lefort's  regiment ;  the  latter  now  amounted  to  upwards 
of  twelve  thousand  picked  men,  mostly  foreigners.  According 
to  Voltaire,  a  fourth  of  this  regiment  were  Frenchmen,  who 
were  driven  into  exile  by  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes. 
They  were  the  heart  of  the  expedition.  But  it  failed  because 
the  Tsar  had  no  fleet  with  which  to  invest  Azof  by  sea,  be- 
cause the  new  army  and  its  chiefs  wanted  experience,  and 
because  Jansen,  known  as  lakushka,  or  Jakob,  the  German 
engineer,  who  had  been  bastinadoed  by  General  Schein,  spiked 
his  cannon  and  passed  over  to  the  enemy.  After  two  assaults 
the  siege  was  raised  in  sixteen  hundred  and  ninety-five.  This 
check  appeared  the  more  grave  because  the  Tsar  himself  was 


1682-1709.]  PETER  THE   GREAT.  21) 

with  the  army,  because  the  first  attempt  to  turn  from  the 
"  amusements "  of  Pi-eobrazhenskoe  to  serious  warfare  had 
tailed,  and  because  this  faihn-e  would  furnish  an  ar2;ument 
against  innovations,  against  the  Germans  and  the  heretics, 
against  the  new  tactics.  It  might  even  compromise,  in  the 
eyes  of  the  people,  the  work  of  regeneration. 

Although  Peter  had  followed  the  example  of  Galitsuin,  and 
entered  Moscow  as  a  conqueror,  he  felt  that  he  needed  revenge. 
He  engaged  good  officers  from  foreign  countries.     The  Em- 
peror Leopold  sent  among  others  the  artillery  commander,  Casi- 
mir  de  Garga,  the  chief  engineer,  Ernest  Friedrich  Baron  von 
Borgsdorf,  and  Laurentius  Urban  with  six  miners,  and  their 
under-officers.     The  Elector   of  Brandenburg,    Friedrich   the 
Third,  afterwards  Friedrich  the  First  of  Prussia,  sent  engineers 
and  artillerymen.    Artillerymen   arrived   also    from  Holland, 
engineers  from  Prussia,  and  Admiral  Lima  came  from  Venice. 
By  means  of  these  officers  the  knowledge  of  western  modes  of 
warfare  was  first  introduced  into  Russia.     Peter  appointed  the 
boyar  Alexis  Schein  to  be  generalissimo  of  all  the  forces,  and 
hastened  the  creation   of  his    fleet  with   feverish  impatience. 
The  forests  lying  near  Voronezh  furnished  oak,  beech,  birch, 
fir,  and  pine  for  his  ships.     He  built  of  green  wood  twenty- 
two  galleys,  a  hundred  rafts,  and  seventeen  hundred   boats. 
All  the  small  ports  of  the  Don  were  metamorphosed  into  dock- 
yards ;  twenty-six  thousand   workmen   were  assembled  there 
from  all  parts  of  the  empire.     It  was  like  the  camp  of  Bou- 
logne, when  Napoleon,  contemplating  the  invasion  of  Great 
Britain,  in  eighteen  hundred  and  four,  was  building  his  num- 
berless transports.     No  misfortune — neither  the  desertion  of 
the  laborers,  the  burnings  of  the  dock-yards,  nor  even  his  own 
illness  —  could   lessen  his  activity.     Peter  was  able  to  write 
that,  "  following  the  advice  which  God  gave   to  our  father 
Adam,  in  the  sweat  of  his  face  he  ate  his  bread."     At  last 
the  "  marine  caravan,"   the   Russian  armada,  descended  the 
Don.     From  the  slopes  of  Azof  he  wrote  to  his  sister  Natalia : 


30  HISTOKY   OF   KUSSIA  [Chap.  I. 

"  Little  sister,  in  obedience  to  tliy  counsels,  I  do  iiot  go  to 
meet  the  shells  and  balls ;  it  is  they  who  come  against  me. 
Give  thy  orders  to  them  that  they  come  not."  Azof  was  block- 
aded by  sea  and  land :  along  the  front  of  the  city  a  barrier 
of  earth  was  to  be  raised  as  high  as  the  walls ;  ten  or  twelve 
thousand  men  were  detailed  to  labor  day  and  night  upon  this, 
and  they  worked  with  such  activity  that  in  five  weeks  the 
trench  was  filled,  and  the  earth  fell  over  the  wall  upon  the 
besieged.  In  the  middle  of  July  the  Cossacks  captured  tAvo 
redoubts  belonging  to  the  enemy.  The  Tatars  also  attacked 
the  Russian  camp,  but  failed.  An  attempt  to  reinforce  the 
garrison  also  proved  fruitless.  Preparations  were  being  made 
for  a  general  assault,  when  the  place  capitulated.  The  joy  in 
Russia  was  great,  and  the  jealousy  that  the  streltsui  felt  at  the 
success  of  foreign  tactics  gave  place  to  their  enthusiasm  as 
Christians  for  this  conquest  of  Islamism,  which  recalled  the 
victories  of  Kazan  and  Astrakhan.  The  effect  produced  on 
Europe  was  considerable.  At  Warsaw  the  people  shouted, 
"  Long  live  the  Tsar  !  "  The  army  entered  Moscow  in  sixteen 
hundred  and  seventy-six  under  triumphal  arches,  on  which 
were  represented  Hercules  trampling  a  pasha  and  two  Turks 
under  foot,  and  Mars  throwing  to  the  earth  a  murza  and  two 
Tatars.  Admiral  Lefort  and  Schein  the  generalissimo  took 
part  in  the  procession,  seated  on  magnificent  sledges  ;  while 
Peter,  who  Avas  determined  to  set  an  example  to  the  nation  and 
rise  through  all  the  grades  of  the  service,  now  having  been 
promoted  to  the  rank  of  captain,  followed  on  foot.  Jansen,  as 
a  punishment  for  his  desertion  and  the  harm  which  he  had 
caused  the  Russians,  was  taken  to  Moscow,  where  his  head 
was  put  upon  a  stake. 

Peter  wished  to  profit  by  this  great  success  to  found  the 
naval  power  of  Russia.  By  the  decision  of  the  council  three 
thousand  families  were  established  at  Azof,  besides  four  hun- 
dred Kalmuiki,  or  Kalmucks,  and  a  garrison  of  Moscow  strelt- 
sui.    The  city  was  fortified  with  strong  bastions  and  a  great 


1682-1709.]  PETER  THE   GREAT.  31 

fortress  called  Petropoiis  was  built  upon  the  other  side  of  the 
Don.  The  Cossacks  were  quartered  on  the  eastern  side  of  the 
city  in  the  islands  of  the  Don  which  had  been  their  customary 
habitation.  The  prelates  and  the  monasteries  were  taxed  for 
the  construction  of  one  vessel  to  every  eight  thousand  serfs. 
The  Patriarch  Adrian  and  several  of  the  wealthier  princes 
were  obliged  to  build  twenty  large  frigates  of  fifty  guns.  The 
Tsar  himself  furnished  nine  ships  of  the  line,  carrying  each 
sixty  cannon.  According  to  their  wealth  all  the  orders  of 
nobility  were  called  upon  to  bear  a  portion  of  the  expense. 
The  merchants  also  furnished  seven  bomb-vessels,  with  fourteen 
or  eighteen  cannon,  and  four  fire-ships  with  eight  cannon.  It 
was  proposed  to  unite  the  Don  and  the  Volga  by  means  of  a 
canal.  A  new  appeal  was  made  to  the  artisans  and  sailors  of 
Europe.  Fifty  young  nobles  of  the  Court  were  sent  to  Venice, 
England,  and  the  Netherlands,  to  learn  seamanship  and  ship- 
building. But  it  was  necessary  that  the  Tsar  himself  should 
be  able  to  judge  of  the  science  of  his  subjects  ;  he  must  coun- 
teract Russian  indolence  and  prejudice  by  the  force  of  a  great 
example ;  and  Peter,  after  having  begun  his  career  in  the 
navy  at  the  rank  of  "  skipper,"  and  in  the  army  at  that  of 
bombardier,  was  to  become  a  carpenter  of  Saandam.  He 
allowed  himself,  as  a  reward  for  his  success  at  Azof,  the  long- 
desired  journey  to  the  West. 

But  before  he  was  able  to  carry  out  his  plan  he  was  to  ex- 
perience a  little  of  the  stubbornness  of  his  people  and  to  dis- 
cover their  dislike  of  the  reforms  which  he  was  trying  to  effect. 
Discontent  was  on  the  increase  among  all  classes,  —  among 
the  streltsui  because  foreigners  were  preferred  to  them  and 
because  they  were  subjected  to  a  discipline  to  which  they  were 
unused ;  among  the  nobles  and  gentry  because  the  Tsar  sent 
their  children  into  the  lands  of  foreigners  and  heretics  and 
obliged  them  to  learn  the  ignoble  arts  of  ship-building  and 
gunnery ;  and  among  the  boyars  and  clergy  because  the  cost 
of  building  and  equipping  a  fleet  of  sixty-four  ships  of  war 


32  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  1. 

within  three  years  was  thrown  upon  them.  The  burden  of 
the  new  regime  became  heavier  and  heavier,  and  without 
exception  all  were  complaining  at  the  forced  change  in  the 
accustomed  current  of  their  lives.  Taking  advantage  of  this 
universal  disgust,  a  conspiracy  was  formed  to  overthrow  the 
Tsar  and  restore  the  old  order  of  things.  The  leading  spirit 
of  the  conspiracy  was  Sophia,  who  thought  that  the  death 
of  Ivan,  which  occurred  in  January,  would  give  a  favorable 
opportunity  for  her  to  escape  from  the  seclusion  of  her  cloister 
and  return  to  the  glory  of  her  former  position. 

On  the  second  day  of  February,  sixteen  hundred  and  ninety- 
seven,  as  the  Tsar  was  in  company  with  a  large  number  of 
ladies  and  gentlemen  at  the  house  of  Lefort,  and  was  about  to 
sit  down  to  supper,  word  was  brought  that  some  one  wished 
to  speak  privately  with  him.  Peter  excused  himself,  and 
quickly  took  his  departure  in  a  sledge.  He  soon  reached  the 
house  of  Alexei  Sokovnin,  who  had  assembled  Alexei  Pushkin, 
Ivan  Tsuikler,  the  commander  of  the  streltsui,  and  a  large 
number  of  other  conspirators.  Peter  sat  down  to  supper  with 
them  as  though  he  were  entirely  ignorant  of  their  design  of 
setting  fire  to  the  house  where  he  had  been  and  of  murdering 
him  during  the  confusion.  He  waited  quietly  until  the  officer 
of  the  guard  appeared  with  sufficient  soldiery  to  arrest  the 
entire  company,  who  were  immediately  loaded  with  chains  and 
taken  to  the  village  of  Preobrazhenskoe.  Peter,  who,  owing  to 
the  guard  being  an  hour  late  through  a  misunderstanding,  had 
narrowly  escaped  death  at  the  hands  of  the  drunken  conspira- 
tors, immediately  returned  to  his  party,  wdiere  he  was  so  jovial 
and  good-humored  that  no  one  suspected  what  had  taken  place 
until  he  himself  related  the  affair.  The  prisoners,  upon  being 
subjected  to  torture,  revealed  the  details  of  the  plot  and  impli- 
cated many  others.  They  had  intended  to  throw  the  blame 
of  the  Tsar's  assassination  upon  the  foreigners,  and  use  that 
as  an  excuse  for  killing  them  all,  men,  women,  and  children. 
Many  of  the  conspirators  had  been  concerned  in  the  plot  of 


16S2-1709.]  PETER   THE    GREAT.  33 

Sliaklovitui  and  Miloslavski.  Peter  was  urged  to  deal  mildly 
with  tlieiii ;  but  judging  that  an  example  was  needed,  the  ring- 
leaders were  first  dismembered  and  then  beheaded,  and  the 
limbs  and  heads  were  exposed  in  prominent  parts  of  the  cit3^ 
The  body  of  Miloslavski,  Avho  had  died  twelve  years  before, 
was  exhumed  and  treated  in  the  same  way.  The  other  con- 
spirators were  banished,  but  the  Princess  Sophia  still  remained 
in  close  confinement. 

After  this  conspiracy  was  crushed,  in  March,  sixteen  hun- 
dred and  ninety-seven.  Admiral  Lefort  and  Generals  Golovin 
and  Voznitsuin  prepared  to  depart  for  the  countries  of  the 
West,  under  the  title  of  "  the  great  ambassadors  of  the  Tsar." 
Their  suite  was  composed  of  two  hundred  and  seventy  persons, 
—  young  nobles,  soldiers,  interpreters,  merchants,  jesters,  and 
buffoons.  In  the  embassy  was  a  young  man  who  went  by 
the  name  of  Peter  Mikhailof.  This 'incognito  would  render 
the  position  of  the  Tsar  easier,  whether  in  his  own  personal 
studies  or  in  delicate  negotiations.  At  Riga  Peter  found  the 
quarters  devoted  to  the  embassy  entirely  insufficient  and  dis- 
graceful ;  moreover,  the  guards  in  that  part  of  the  city  were 
doubled.  The  governor,  Graf  Dahlberg,  avoided  paying  his 
respects  to  the  ambassadors,  excusing  himself  by  a  plea  of 
sickness.  But  wliat  most  roused  the  indignation  of  the  Tsar 
was  that  he  himself,  in  taking  an  observation  of  the  city  and 
its  fortifications,  was  rudely  treated,  and  prevented  from 
accomplishing  his  purpose.  The  insult  was  not  at  that  time 
resented,  but  the  recollection  of  it  was  laid  up  for  future  use. 
After  spending  a  fortnight  in  Riga  the  Tsar  went  to  Mitava, 
and  finally  reached  Konigsberg.  The  embassy  entered  the  city 
with  all  possible  display.  First,  outriders  on  superb  steeds ; 
then  three  companies  of  guards  mounted  on  gray,  black,  and 
brown  horses,  accompanied  by  trumpeters,  drummers,  halber- 
diers with  gilded  weapons,  guardsmen  with  silver  battle-axes ; 
and  finally  the  ambassadors  themselves  in  the  full  glory  of 
their  national  costume.     Some  of  the  soldiers  were  dressed  in 


34  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  I. 

German  uniform  ;  but  among  them  marched  a  small  com- 
pany of  six  Kalmucks,  with  all  tlie  accouti'ements  of  Asiatic 
warriors.  The  ambassadors  brought  gifts  of  costly  fiu-s  and 
gold  and  silver  cloths.  At  Konigsberg  the  Prussian  Colonel 
Sternfeld  delivered  to  M.  Peter  Mikhailof  "  a  formal  brevet  of 
master  of  gunnery."  They  were  entertained  at  the  house  of 
Dankelman  the  Minister,  where  the  Tsar  caused  no  little  aston- 
ishment by  his  wild  actions.  Once,  at  dinner,  he  flew  into 
such  a  passion  with  Lefort  that  he  drew  his  sword  upon  him, 
and  was  prevented  from  doing  serious  harm  only  by  the  cool- 
ness of  Lefort  and  another  gentleman  present.  One  time  he 
was  passing  a  lady  on  the  street,  when  suddenly  he  shouted 
out  to  her,  "  Stop!"  He  then  pulled  out  her  enamelled  watch, 
and  after  examining  it  carefully  put  it  back.  Another  time 
he  snatched  the  new  and  stylish  wig  from  the  head  of  the  chief 
master  of  ceremonies,  BeSser,  and  after  looking  at  it  a  moment 
threw  it  on  the  floor  with  utter  scorn. 

The  great  ambassadors  and  their  travelling  companion  were 
cordially  received  by  the  Courts  of  Kurland,  Hanover,  and 
Brandenburg.  In  the  Castle  of  Koppenbriigge,  near  Hanover, 
he  was  the  guest  of  Sophia,  the  widow  of  the  Elector.  Both 
she  and  her  daughter,  Sophia  Charlotte  of  Hanover,  afterwards 
Queen  of  Prussia,  have  left  us  some  curious  notes  about  the 
Tsar,  who  was  then  twenty-seven  years  of  age.  He  astonished 
them  by  the  vivacity  of  his  mind,  and  the  promptitude  and 
point  of  his  answers,  not  less  than  by  the  grossness  of  his 
manners,  his  bad  habits  at  table,  his  wild  timidity  (as  though 
he  were  conscious  of  his  lack  of  good  manners),  his  grimaces, 
and  a  frightful  twitching  which  at  times  convulsed  his  whole 
face.  Peter  had  a  beautiful  brown  skin,  with  great  piercing 
eyes,  but  his  features  already  bore  traces  of  toil  and  debauchery. 
The  Electress  wrote  in  a  letter  dated  August  eleven  :  "  Con- 
sidering all  the  advantages  which  nature  has  given  him,  it 
would  be  well  if  his  manners  were  a  little  less  boorish."  And 
again  she  says  :   "  He  is  a  prince  endowed  with  very  good  and 


1682-1709.]  PETER   THE    GREAT.  35 

at  the  same  time  very  bad  qualities ;  in  fact,  he  has  all  the 
peculiarities  of  his  countrymen.  If  he  had  enjoyed  a  better 
education,  he  would  be  an  accomplished  man,  for  he  has 
many  good  points,  and  an  infinity  of  natural  wit."  The  suite 
of  the  Tsar  were  not  less  eccentric  than  their  master ;  the 
Muscovites  danced  with  the  Court  ladies,  and  took  the  stiffen- 
ing of  their  corsets  for  their  bones.  "  The  bones  of  these 
German  women  are  devilish  hard  !  "  said  the  Tsar. 

Leaving  the  great  embassy  on  the  road,  Peter  went  down 
the  Rhine  to  Utrecht,  from  which  town  he  hastened  to  Amster- 
dam and  departed  the  evening  of  his  arrival  for  Saandam  ( or 
Saardam).  There  he  took  a  lodging  at  the  house  of  Gerrit  Kist, 
a  blacksmith,  and  an  old  fellow-workman  of  Peter's.  He  pro- 
cured himself  a  complete  outfit  of  clothes  like  those  w-orn  by 
the  Dutch  ship-carpenters,  and  began  to  wield  the  axe.  He 
bargained  for  a  boat,  bought  it,  and  drank  the  traditional  pint 
of  beer  with  its  owner.  He  visited  cutleries,  rope- walks,  and 
other  manufactories,  and  everywhere  tried  his  hand  at  the 
work ;  in  a  paper  manufactory  he  made  some  excellent  paper. 
However,  in  spite  of  the  tradition,  he  remained  only  eight 
days  at  Saandam.  On  the  third  day  after  his  arrival  he  was 
recognized.  A  sea-captain  wrote  from  Russia  that  the  Tsar 
was  to  visit  Saandam,  and  described  his  personal  appearance. 
The  people  began  to  trouble  him,  and  so  he  sailed  for  Amster- 
dam in  his  own  yacht.  His  life  in  that  city  was  no  less 
astonishing.  He  neither  took  any  rest  himself,  nor  allowed 
others  to  do  so  ;  he  exhausted  all  his  ciceroni  by  his  insatia- 
ble curiosity.  He  inspected  the  most  celebrated  anatomical 
collections,  and  frequently  watched  the  surgical  operations  in 
the  Saint  Peter  Hospital ;  he  visited  the  whaling  fleet  which 
w\is  about  to  set  sail  from  Amsterdam,  in  order  to  become 
familiar  with  all  the  details  of  the  fishery  ;  he  made  himself  ac- 
quainted also  with  the  different  forms  of  religious  observances  ; 
he  studied  into  all  kinds  of  manufactures,  engaged  artists, 
workmen,  officers,  engineers,  and  surgeons,  and  bought  mod- 


36  HISTORY  OP  RUSSIA.  [Chap.  I. 

els  of  ships  and  collections  of  naval  laws  and  treaties.  He 
entered  familiarly  the  houses  of  private  individuals,  gained  the 
confidence  of  the  Dutch  by  his  good-nature,  penetj-ated  into 
the  recesses  of  the  shops  and  stalls,  and  stood  in  the  market- 
place lost  in  admiration  of  a  wandering  dentist.  He  summoned 
him  to  his  lodgings,  and,  learning  the  use  of  the  instruments 
with  great  aptness,  he  practised  his  new  art  wpon  his  follow- 
ers. Meanwhile  the  news  came  that  the  ambassadors  of  the 
Tsar  of  Russia  were  on  their  way  to  The  Hague.  Every  prep- 
aration was  made  to  receive  them  with  great  honor,  for  it  was 
whispered  that  the  Tsar  himself  was  one  of  their  number.  The 
master  of  ceremonies,  Van  Dintir,  went  to  Cleves  with  a  throng 
of  courtiers  and  musicians,  in  order  to  receive  the  Russians 
at  the  very  borders  of  the  land.  Amid  the  thunder  of  cannon 
they  came  into  Nymwegen.  At  Amsterdam  they  were  re- 
ceived by  the  Burgomeister,  and  a  splendidly  uniformed  regi- 
ment of  young  men  from  tlie  best  families  of  the  city.  The 
ambassadors  rode  in  state  ;  in  the  first  coach  were  Lefort  and 
Menshikof ;  the  Tsar  took  his  place  among  the  other  nobles 
in  one  of  the  last  carriages.  The  nobles  were  dressed  in  long 
coats,  with  caps  of  costly  fur,  which,  as  well  as  their  weapons, 
glittered  with  pearls  and  jewels.  The  city  of  Amsterdam  was 
filled  with  gay  festivity.  Theatrical  performances  and  dances 
were  arranged  for  the  amusement  of  the  distinguished  visitors, 
and  fireworks  upon  the  river  Amstel  painted  in  colors  of  fire 
the  deeds  of  the  Russian  Tsar. 

But,  amidst  all  these  distractions,  he  never  lost  sight  of  his 
aim.  "  We  labor,"  he  wrote  to  the  Patriarch  Adrian,  "  in 
order  thoroughly  to  master  the  art  of  the  sea  ;  so  that,  having 
once  learned  it,  we  may  return  to  Russia  and  conquer  the  ene- 
mies of  Christ,  and  free  by  His  grace  the  Christians  who  are 
oppressed.  This  is  what  I  shall  never  cease  to  desire  as  long 
as  I  live."  He  dwelt  in  Amsterdam  like  a  common  workman  ; 
he  scorned  the  service  of  lackeys  ;  when  he  felt  the  pangs  of 
hunoer  he  would  kindle  a  fire  under  his  kettle  and  cook  his 


16S3-1709.]  PETER   THE   GREAT.  37 

own  dinner.  When  he  was  dressed  for  work  he  answered 
only  to  the  name  of  Carpenter  Peter  of  Saandam  or  Master 
Peter ;  and  a  person  who  addressed  him  as  Your  Majesty,  or 
Mynheer,  would  receive  the  cold  shoulder.  After  the  embassy 
had  stayed  two  months  at  Amsterdam  they  took  their  departure 
for  The  Hague,  where  they  were  received  with  magnificence. 
On  the  journey  Peter  stopped  to  examine  everything  which 
was  unfamiliar  to  him.  Grist-mills,  ferry-boats,  and  machines 
for  irrigation  received  his  most  careful  attention.  When  they 
arrived  at  the  city,  though  a  comfortable  apartment  was  pro- 
vided for  the  Tsar,  he  preferred  to  wander  around  until  mid- 
night, when  finally  he  found  a  Russian  servant  asleep  on  a 
bear-skin  at  the  hotel  of  his  embassy.  He  woke  him  with 
a  kick,  and  usurped  his  place  on  the  floor,  where  he  soon  fell 
sound  asleep.  At  the  audience  he  dressed  like  a  nobleman,  in 
a  blue  coat  trimmed  with  gold ;  he  wore  a  great  light  wig  and 
a  hat  with  white  feathers.  At  The  Hague  he  had  several 
fimiliar  conversations  with  the  stadtholder.  King  William  the 
Third,  and  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  many  of  the  distin- 
guished Dutch  statesmen.  Prom  The  Hague  Peter  went  to 
Leyden,  and  studied  into  microscopy  with  the  celebrated  nat- 
uralist, Leeuwenhoek.  He  was  especially  delighted  Avith  the 
circulation  of  blood  in  the  veins  of  a  fish.  From  Leyden  he 
returned  to  Amsterdam,  and  helped  build  a  galiot,  which 
was  presented  to  him  in  the  name  of  the  city,  and  the  next 
year  it  made  its  first  trip  to  Arkhangel,  laden  with  the  Tsar's 
own  purchases.  But  he  was  vexed  at  making  so  little  prog- 
ress in  ship-building,  for  in  Holland  every  one  had  to  lenrn  by 
personal  experience.  A  naval  captain  told  him  that  in  England 
instruction  was  based  on  principles,  and  these  he  could  learn 
in  four  months;  so  Peter,  with  Menshikofand  fifteen  other 
Russians,  crossed  the  sea  in  a  fleet  of  three  ships  of  war  and 
a  yacht,  commanded  by  Admiral  Mitchell,  which  were  placed 
at  his  disposal  by  William  the  Third.  He  spent  three  months 
in  London  and  the  neighboring  towns.      He  took  great  pleas- 


38  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  I. 

ure  in  visiting  the  chnrclies  and  the  various  sects,  such  as  the 
Quakers,  and  he  found  much  to  study  in  the  collections  of  the 
Tower.  In  April  Admiral  Carmarthen  gave  a  mock  naval 
battle  at  Spithead  in  his  honor,  which  was  carried  out  with 
magnificent  detail.  After  taking  into  his  service  goldsmiths 
and  gold-beaters,  architects  and  bombardiers,  astronomers  and 
mathematicians,  and  buying  models  of  all  kinds,  he  returned 
to  Holland.  On  his  departure  William  presented  him  with 
a  beautiful  frigate  of  twenty-four  guns,  which  had  been  litted 
up  for  his  own  use.  On  the  way,  his  ship  being  attacked  by' 
a  violent  tempest,  he  reassured  those  who  trembled  for  his 
safety  by  the  remark,  "  Did  you  ever  hear  of  a  Tsar  of  Russia 
who  was  drowned  in  the  North  Sea  ?  "  Though  much  occu- 
pied with  his  technical  studies,  he  had  not  neglected  policy. 
lie  had  conversed  with  William  the  Third,  but  he  did  not 
visit  France  in  this  tour,  for  "  Louis  the  Fourteenth,"  says 
Saint  Simon,  "had  procured  the  postponement  of  his  visit"; 
the  fact  being  that  his  alliance  with  the  Emperor  and  his 
wars  with  the  Turks  were  looked  on  with  disfavor  at  Ver- 
sailles. More  than  six  hundred  skilled  workmen  and  artists 
had  meanwhile  been  engaged  for  him  in  Holland,  and  this 
number  was  still  more  increased  by  many  who  had  escaped 
from  France  and  were  anxious  to  enter  his  service.  In  June 
the  Russian  ambassadors  left  Holland,  which  no  doubt  felt 
relieved  at  parting  with  so  many  expensive  guests.  Passing 
through  Cleves  and  Leipsic,  and  delaying  until  June  in 
Dresden,  where  he  carefully  studied  the  art  galleries,  Peter 
finally  reached  Vienna,  where  he  studied  the  military  art,  and 
dissuaded  Leopold,  who  was  weary  of  the  fifteen  years'  war, 
from  making  peace  with  the  Sultan.  Contemporaneous  judg- 
ments regarding  great  men  are  always  interesting  and  in- 
structive. Bishop  Burnet,  in  his  "  History  of  His  Own  Tim.e," 
gives  the  following  account  of  the  Tsar's  visit  to  England  : 
"He  is  a  man  of  a  very  hot  temper,  soon  inflamed  and  very 
brutal  in  his  passion ;  he  raises  his  natural  heat  by  drinking 


1682-1709.]  PETER  THE   GREAT.  39 

much  brandy,  which  he  rectifies  himself  Avith  great  apphca- 
tion  ;  he  is  subject  to  convulsive  motions  all  over  his  body, 
and  his  head  seems  to  be  affected  with  these  ;  he  wants  not 
capacity,  and  has  a  larger  measure  of  knowledge  than  might 
be  expected  from  his  education,  which  was  very  indifferent. 
A  want  of  judgment  with  an  instability  of  temper  appear  in 
him  too  often  and  too  evidently  ;  he  is  mechanically  turned, 
and  seems  designed  by  nature  rather  to  be  a  ship-carpenter 
than  a  great  prince  :  this  was  his  chief  study  and  exercise 
while  he  stayed  here ;  he  wrought  much  with  his  own  hands, 
and  made  all  about  him  work  at  the  models  of  ships.  He 
told  me  he  designed  a  great  fleet  at  Azuph,  and  with  it  to 
attack  the  Turkish  Empire ;  but  he  did  not  seem  capable  of 
conducting  so  great  a  design,  though  his  conduct  in  his  wars 
since  this  has  discovered  a  greater  genius  in  him  than  ap- 
peared at  that  time.  He  was  disposed  to  understand  our 
doctrine,  but  he  did  not  seem  desirous  to  mend  matters  in 
Muscovy  ;  he  was  indeed  resolved  to  encourage  learning,  and 
to  polish  his  people  by  sending  some  of  them  to  travel  in 
other  countries,  and  to  draw  strangers  to  come  and  live  among 
them.  He  seemed  apprehensive  still  of  his  sister's  intrigues. 
There  was  a  mixture  both  of  passion  and  severity  in  his  tem- 
per. He  is  resolute,  but  understands  little  of  war  and  seemed 
not  at  all  inquisitive  that  way.  After  I  had  seen  him  often, 
and  had  conversed  much  with  him,  I  could  not  but  adore  the 
depth  of  the  providence  of  God,  that  had  raised  up  such  a 
furious  man  to  so  absolute  an  authority  over  so  great  a  part  of 
the  world.  David,  considering  the  great  things  God  had  made 
for  the  use  of  man,  broke  out  into  the  meditation,  What  is 
man,  that  thou  art  so  mindful  of  him  ?  But  here  there  is  an 
occasion  for  reversing  these  words,  since  man  seems  a  very 
contemptible  thing  in  the  sight  of  God,  Avhile  such  a  person 
as  the  Tsar  has  such  multitudes  put,  as  it  were,  under  his  feet, 
exposed  to  his  resistless  jealousy  and  savage  temper."  Peter 
was  preparing  to  go  to  Venice,  when  vexatious  intelligence 
reached  him  from  Moscow. 


40  HISTOKY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  I. 


REVOLT  AND  DESTRUCTION  OP  THE  STRELTSUI. 

As  has  been  remarked,  Peter's  initiatory  reforms,  his  first 
attempts  against  the  national  prejudices  and  customs,  had 
raised  him  up  a  host  of  enemies.  Okl  Russia  did  not  allow 
itself  quietly  to  be  set  aside  by  the  bold  innovator.  There 
was  in  the  interior  a  sullen  and  resolute  resistance,  which 
sometimes  gave  birth  to  bloody  scenes.  The  revolt  of  the 
streltsui,  the  insurrection  of  Astrakhan,  tlie  rebellion  of  the 
Cossacks,  and  later  the  trial  of  his  son  and  first  wife,  are  only 
episodes  of  the  great  struggle.  Already  the  priests  were  teach- 
ing that  Antichrist  was  born.  It  had  been  prophesied  that 
Antichrist  should  be  born  of  an  adulteress,  and  Peter  was  the 
son  of  the  second  wife  of  Alexis  ;  therefore  his  mother,  Natalia, 
was  the  "  false  virgin,"  the  adulterous  woman  of  the  prophecies. 
The  increasingly  heavy  taxes  that  weighed  on  the  people  were 
another  sign  that  the  time  had  come.  Others,  disgusted  by 
the  taste  shown  by  the  Tsar  for  German  clothes  and  foreign 
languages  and  adventurers,  affirmed  that  he  was  not  the  son 
of  Alexis,  but  of  Lefort  the  Genevan,  or  that  his  father  was  a 
German  surgeon.  They  were  scandalized  to  see  the  Tsar  con- 
descend to  expose  himself  to  blows  in  his  military  "  amuse- 
ments." The  lower  orders  were  indignant  at  the  abolition  of 
the  long  beards  and  national  costume,  and  the  raskolniki  were 
scandalized  at  the  authorization  of  "  the  sacrilegious  smell  of 
tobacco."  The  journey  to  the  West  completed  the  general 
dissatisfaction.  Had  any  one  ever  before  seen  a  Tsar  of  ]\los- 
cow  quit  Holy  Russia  to  wander  in  the  kingdoms  of  foreign- 
ers ?  Who  knew  what  adventures  might  befall  him  among  the 
Turks  and  the  Germans  ?  for  the  Russian  people  hardly  knew 
how  to  distinguish  betw^een  them,  and  they  were  wholly  igno- 
rant of  Prance  and  England.  Under  an  unknown  sky,  at  the 
extremity  of  the  world,  on  the  shores  of  the  "  ocean  sen,"  what 
dangers  might  he  not  encounter  ?  Then  a  singular  legend  was 
invented  about  the  travels  of  the  Tsar.     It  was  said  that  he 


1683-1709.]  PETER  THE   GREAT.  41 

went  to  Stockholm  disguised  as  a  merchant,  and  that  the 
queen  had  recognized  him,  and  had  tried  in  vain  to  capture 
him.  According  to  another  version,  she  had  phuiged  him  in 
a  dungeon,  and  dehvered  liim  over  to  his  enemies,  who  wished 
to  put  him  into  a  cask  hned  with  nails,  and  throw  him  into 
the  sea.  He  had  only  been  saved  by  one  of  the  streltsui,  who 
had  taken  his  place.  Some  asserted  that  Peter  was  still  kept 
there;  and  in  seventeen  hundred  and  five  the  streltsui  and 
raskolniki  of  Astrakhan  still  gave  out  that  it  was  a  false  Tsar 
who  had  come  back  to  Moscow,  —  the  true  Tsar  was  a  pris- 
oner at  Stekoln,  attached  to  a  post. 

In  the  midst  of  this  universal  disturbance,  caused  by  the 
absence  of  Peter,  there  were  certain  symptoms  peculiarly  dis- 
quieting. The  Muscovite  army  grew  more  and  more  hostile 
to  the  new  order  of  things.  The  streltsui,  who  had  been  sent 
to  form  the  garrison  of  Azof,  pined  for  their  wives,  their  chil- 
dren, and  the  trades  they  had  left  in  Moscow.  When,  in  the 
absence  of  the  Tsar,  four  regiments  of  them  were  sent  from  Azof 
to  the  frontiers  of  Poland,  they  again  began  to  murnnu\  "  What 
a  fate  is  ours  !  It  is  the  boyars  who  do  all  the  miscliief ;  for 
three  years  they  have  kept  us  from  our  homes."  Two  hun- 
dred deserted  and  returned  to  Moscow  ;  but  the  council,  fearing 
their  presence  in  the  already  troubled  capital,  expelled  them 
by  force.  They  brought  back  to  their  regiments  a  letter  from 
Sophia.  "  You  suffer,"  she  wrote ;  "  later  it  will  become 
worse.  March  on  ^loscow.  What  is  it  you  wait  for?  There 
is  no  news  of  the  Tsar."  It  was  repeated  through  the  army 
that  the  Tsar  had  died  in  foreign  lands,  and  that  the  boyars 
wished  to  put  his  son  Alexis  to  death.  It  was  necessary  to 
march  on  Moscow  and  exterminate  the  nobles.  The  military 
sedition  was  complicated  by  the  religious  fanaticism  of  the  ras- 
kolniki and  the  demagogic  passions  of  the  popular  army.  Eight 
thousand,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  their  general,  Prince  Roino- 
danovski,  to  restrain  them,  revolted,  deposed  their  ofi^icers,  and 
marched  against  Moscow.     Generals  Schein  and  Gordon,  with 


42  HISTORY   OF  RUSSIA.  [Chap.  T. 

* 
their  regular  troops,  hastened  after  them,  came  up  with  them 
near  the  New  Jerusalem  convent  on  the  banks  of  the  Istra,  and 
tried  to  persuade  them  to  return  to  their  duty.  The  streltsui 
replied  by  a  petition  setting  forth  all  their  grievances  :  "  Many 
of  them  had  died  during  the  expedition  to  Azof,  suggested 
by  Lefort,  a  German,  a  heretic;  they  had  endured  fatiguing 
marches  over  burning  plains,  their  only  food  being  bad  meat ; 
their  strength  had  been  exhausted  by  severe  tasks,  and  they  had 
been  banished  to  distant  garrisons.  Moscow  was  now  a  prey 
to  all  sorts  of  horrors.  Foreigners  had  introduced  the  cus- 
tom of  shaving  the  beard  and  smoking  tobacco,  to  the  entire 
destruction  of  the  holy  faith.  It  was  said  that  these  Germans 
meant  to  seize  the  town.  On  this  rumor,  the  streltsui  had 
arrived,  and  also  because  Romodauovski  wished  to  disperse 
and  put  them  to  the  sword  without  any  one  knowing  why." 
A  few  cannon-shots  were  sufficient  to  scatter  the  rebels,  who 
were  mainly  foot-soldiers.  With  the  aid  of  the  cavalry  four 
thousand  six  hundred  were  arrested  ;  torture,  the  gibbet,  and 
the  dungeon  awaited  the  captives. 

When  Peter  hastened  home  from  Vienna,  he  decided  that 
his  generals  and  his  council  had  been  too  lenient.  He  had 
old  grievances  against  the  streltsui ;  they  had  been  the  army 
of  Sophia,  in  opposition  to  the  army  of  the  Tsar ;  he  remem- 
bered the  invasion  of  the  Kreml,  the  massacre  of  his  mother's 
family,  her  terrors  in  Troitsa,  and  the  conspiracies  which  all 
but  prevented  his  journey  to  the  West.  At  the  very  time  that 
he  was  ti-avelling  in  Europe  for  the  benefit  of  his  people, 
these  incorric:ible  mutineers  had  forced  him  to  renounce  his 
dearest  projects,  and  had  stopped  him  on  the  road  to  Venice. 
He  resolved  to  take  advantage  of  the  opportunity  by  com- 
pletely crushing  his  enemies,  and  by  making  the  partisans  of 
Old  Russia  feel  the  weight  of  a  terror  that  would  recall  the  days 
of  Ivan  the  Fourth.  The  long  beards  had  been  the  standard  of 
revolt,  —  they  shoidd  fall.  On  the  twenty-sixth  of  August,  the 
first  dav  after  his  return,  the  nobles  presented  themselves  l)efore 


1682-1709.]  PETER   THE   GREAT.  43 

him  at  Preobrazlienskoe,  and  fell  upon  their  faces  in  accord- 
ance with  the  ancient  customs.  Peter  raised  them  courteously 
to  their  feet,  but  he  ordered  all  the  gentlemen  of  his  Court  to 
shave  themselves,  and  himself  applied  the  razor  to  his  great 
lords.  The  same  day  the  Red  Place  was  covered  with  gib- 
bets. The  Secret  Chamber  of  Inquiry  had  meanwhile  been 
holding  its  sessions,  and  hundreds  of  the  streltsui  had  under- 
gone the  most  terrible  tortures  rather  than  confess  their  guilt 
and  reveal  the  names  of  their  accomplices.  The  Patriarch 
Adrian  tried  in  vain  to  appease  the  Tsar's  anger  by  presenting 
to  him  the  wonder-workino;  imasre  of  the  Mother  of  God. 
"  Why  hast  thou  brought  out  the  holy  ikon  ?  "  exclaimed  the 
Tsar.  "  Retire,  and  restore  it  to  its  place.  Know  that  I 
venerate  God  and  His  Mother  as  much  as  thyself,  but  know 
also  that  it  is  my  duty  to  protect  the  people  and  punish  the 
rebels." 

On  the  first  of  October  there  arrived  at  the  Red  Place  the 
first  instalment  of  two  hundred  and  thirty  prisoners  :  they 
came  in  carts,  with  lighted  torches  in  their  hands,  nearly  all 
already  broken  by  torture,  and  followed  by  their  wives  and 
children,  who  ran  behind  uttering  mournful  lamentations. 
Their  sentence  was  read,  and  they  were  slain,  the  Tsar  order- 
ing several  officers,  whom  he  suspected  of  cherishing  sym- 
pathy with  the  revolt,  to  help  the  executioner.  Seven  days 
were  employed  in  this  way ;  a  thousand  victims  were  executed. 
Some  were  broken  on  the  wheel,  and  others  died  by  various 
modes  of  tortiu-e.  John  George  Korb,  the  Austrian  agent, 
who  as  an  eye-witness  has  left  us  an  authentic  account  of  the 
executions,  heard  that  "  five  rebel  heads  had  been  sent  into 
the  dust  by  blows  from  an  axe  wielded  by  the  noblest  hand 
in  Russia."  The  terrible  carpenter  of  Saandam  worked  and 
obliged  his  boyars  to  work  at  this  horrible  employment.  It 
is  said  that  on  the  last  day  Peter  himself  put  to  deatli  eighty- 
four  of  the  streltsui.  The  removal  of  the  corpses  was  for- 
bidden :  for  five  months  the  Muscovites  had  before  their  eves 


44  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  I. 

the  spectacle  of  the  dead  bodies  hanging  from  the  battlements 
of  the  Kreml  and  the  other  ramparts ;  and  for  five  months 
three  streltsui  suspended  to  the  bars  of  Sophia's  prison  pre- 
sented her  the  petition  by  which  they  had  entreated  her  to 
reign.  Two  of  her  confidants  were  buried  alive ;  she  her- 
self, with  Evdokia  Lapukhin,  Peter's  wife,  whom  he  repudiated 
for  her  obstinate  attachment  to  the  ancient  customs,  had  their 
heads  shaved  and  were  confined  in  monasteri-es.  After  the 
revolt  of  the  inhabitants  of  Astrakhan,  who  put  their  voievod 
to  death  at  the  beginning  of  the  next  century,  the  old  militia 
was  completely  abolished,  and  the  way  left  clear  for  the  for- 
mation of  new  troops.  The  streltsui  formed  an  independent 
body  or  armed  corporation,  who  were  conscious  of  their 
power,  and  it  was  almost  an  impossibility  to  restrain  them 
without  using  the  severest  measures,  —  in  fact,  without  re- 
pressing the  whole  body  of  them.  In  August,  seventeen  hun- 
dred, Peter  wrote  the  Patriarch  of  Jerusalem  :  "  For  the  third 
time  within  nineteen  years  have  the  streltsui  broken  out  in 
revolt,  and  they  have  caused  us  more  harm  than  good.  Since 
our  return  we  have  reduced  them  to  obedience  by  death  and 
other  punishments.  The  remainder,  whose  number  amounts 
to  perhaps  twenty  thousand,  we  have  been  constrained  to  re- 
tain in  our  service  as  a  protection  against  future  outbreaks." 

CONTEST    WITH   THE    COSSACKS:     REVOLT    OP    THE 
DON;  MAZEPPA. 

The  streltsui  did  not  form  the  only  military  force  of  ancient 
Russia  whose  existence  and  privileges  had  become  incompati- 
ble with  the  organization  of  the  modern  State.  The  Voiska, 
or  troops  of  Cossacks,  —  those  republican  and  undisciplined 
warriors  who  had  been  formerly  the  rampart  of  Russia,  and 
were  its  outposts  against  the  barbarians,  —  had  to  undergo  a 
transformation.  The  empire  had  numerous  grievances  against 
them :  the  Cossacks  of  the  Ukraina  or  the  Border  and  those 
of  the  Don  had  given  birth  to  the  first  and  the  second  of  the 


1GS2-1709.]  PETER   THE   GREAT.  45 

false  Dmitris,  and  from  the  army  of  the  Don  had  sprang  the 
terrible  Stenko  Razin. 

In  seventeen  lunuh'ed  and  six  the  Cossacks  of  the  Don 
revolted  against  the  Tsarian  government,  because  they  were 
forbidden  to  give  an  asylum  to  the  peasants  who  fled  from 
their  masters,  or  to  those  who  took  refuge  from  taxation  in 
the  camp.  The  ataman  Bulavin,  and  his  lieutenants,  Nekrasof, 
Frolof,  and  Dranui,  summoned  them  to  arms.  They  mur- 
dered Prince  luri  Dolgoruki,  defeated  the  Russians  on  the 
Liskovata,  took  Tcherkask,  threatened  Azof,  all  the  while  pro- 
testinoj  their  fidelitv  to  the  Tsar,  and  accusino;  the  voievodui 
of  having  acted  "  without  orders."  They  soon,  however,  suf- 
fered defeat  at  the  hands  of  Vasili  Dolgoruki,  brother  of  the 
man  whom  they  had  killed.  Bulavin  was  stabbed  by  his 
own  soldiers,  and  Nekrasof  fled  with  two  thousand  men  to 
the  Kuban.  The  rebel  camp  was  laid  waste,  and  Dolgoruki 
was  able  to  write  :  "  The  chief  mutineers  and  declared  traitors 
have  been  hung ;  of  the  others,  one  out  of  every  ten ;  and  all 
these  dead  malefactors  have  been  laid  on  rafts  and  abandoned 
to  the  river,  so  as  to  strike  terror  into  the  hearts  of  the 
Dontsui,  and  to  cause  them  to  repent." 

Since  the  removal  of  Samoilovitch,  in  sixteen  hundred  and 
eighty-seven,  Ivan  Mazeppa  had  been  the  hetman  of  the 
Little  Russian  Cossacks  of  the  Ukraina.  He  was  a  Polish 
gentleman  of  Bielaia  Tcherkov,  in  Volhynia.  In  his  youth  he 
was  a  page  of  Ian  Kasimir,  King  of  Poland,  and  received  a 
thorough  military  training.  After  several  years  of  service  he 
went  with  the  Polish  marshal  to  fight  the  Cossacks  who  had 
revolted.  Then  he  showed  such  ability  that  the  king  sent 
him  as  ambassador  to  the  Khan  of  the  Tatars.  On  his  return 
to  Poland  that  adventure  befell  him  which  the  poem  of  Lord 
Byron  and  the  pictures  of  Horace  Vernet  have  rendered  fa- 
mous. After  he  was  taken  prisoner  by  the  Zaporoshtsui,  and 
had  been  loosed  from  the  back  of  the  unbroken  horse  which  had 
carried  him  into  the  solitudes  of  the  Ukraina,  he  entered  the 


46  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  I. 

Cossack  army,  and  gained  the  good  will  of  the  hetman  Ivan 
Sanioilovitch,  who  made  him  his  secretary  and  confidant.  He 
also  had  charge  of  the  revenues,  and  thereby  gained  great 
wealth  and  repute.  By  betraying  all  chiefs  and  parties  in 
turn,  he  had  risen  through  the  successive  grades  of  military 
service  to  the  highest.  He  owed  the  office  of  hetman  to  Ga- 
litsuin  and  Sophia,  but  on  the  banishment  of  Galitsuin,  who 
had  been  a  powerful  friend  to  him,  he  found  it  for  his  interests 
to  embrace  the  cause  of  Peter.  His  elevation  gained  him 
many  enemies,  but  the  Tsar,  who  admired  his  intelligence  and 
believed  in  his  fidelity,  delivered  up  to  him  his  accusers.  He 
executed  the  monk  Salomon,  who  pretended  to  reveal  Ma- 
zeppa's  intrigues  with  the  King  of  Poland  and  Sophia ;  Mi- 
khailof  in  sixteen  hundred  and  ninety,  and  the  secretary  Suzlof 
in  sixteen  hundred  and  ninety-six,  were  likewise  put  to  death. 

All  this  time  the  Ukraina  was  being  steadily  undermined 
by  factions.  In  the  Cossack  army  there  always  existed  a 
Russian  party,  a  party  who  desired  Polish  government,  and 
a  party  who  wished  to  become  vassals  of  the  Turks.  In 
sixteen  hundred  and  ninety-three  Petrck,  one  of  the  Turkish 
chiefs,  invaded  the  Ukraina  with  forty  thousand  Tatars,  but 
was  forced  to  retreat.  Besides  this,  the  views  of  the  army 
and  those  of  the  sedentary  populations  of  the  Ukraina  were 
always  at  variance.  The  hetman  dreamed  of  becoming  inde- 
pendent, the  officers  disliked  being  responsible  to  any  one,  and 
the  soldiers  wished  to  live  at  tli^  expense  of  the  country,  with- 
out either  working  or  paying  taxes,  after  the  manner  of  the 
ancient  nobles ;  but  the  farmers  who  had  created  the  agricul- 
tural prosperity  of  the  country,  the  citizens  who  could  not 
work  in  security,  in  fact,  all  the  peaceful  laboring  population, 
determined  to  get  rid  of  the  turbulent  military  oligarchy,  and 
hailed  the  Tsar  of  Moscow  as  a  liberator. 

Mazeppa  represented  the  military  element  of  the  Ukraina, 
and  knew  that  he  was  hated  by  the  more  peaceful  classes. 
The   Tsar   overwhelmed  him  with    proofs  of   confidence :   he 


1682-1709.]  PETER  THE   GREAT.  47 

decorated  him  with  the  cross  of  Saint  Andrew,  and  tried  to 
make  him  a  prince  of  the  Roman  Empire ;  but  Mazeppa,  ex- 
pecting to  obtain  more  considerable  titles,  prerogatives,  and 
advantages  from  Charles,  King  of  Sweden,  deferred  paying 
the  expenses  of  the  diploma,  and  in  consequence  failed  to 
obtain  the  dignity.     Mazeppa  feared  the  strengthening  of  the 
Russian  State.    He  remembered  how  one  day  in  an  orgie  the  Tsar 
had  seized  him  by  the  beard  and  violently  shaken  him.     The 
taxes  imposed  on  the  vassal  State  of  Little  Russia  became  daily 
heavier,  and  in  the  war  with  Charles  the  Twelftli  they  increased 
still  more.     Everything  was  to  be  feared  from  Peter's  imperi- 
ous humor  and  autocratic  pretensions.     The  invasion  by  the 
Swedes,  which  was  now  imminent,  would  necessarily  precipi- 
tate the  crisis ;  and  either  Little  Russia  would  gain  its  inde- 
pendence by  the  help  of  the  foreigners,  or  their  defeat  on  its 
soil  would  give  a  mortal  blow^  to  its  prosperity  and  its  hopes 
for  the  future.     Feeling  that  the  hour  was  drawing  near  when 
he  must  obey  the  White  Tsar,  Mazeppa  allowed  himself  to  be 
drawn  into  communications  with  Stanislas  Leshtchinski,  the 
King  of  Poland,  who  in  June,  seventeen  hundred  and  four, 
had  been  set  up  by  the  Swedish  party,  and  elected  by  aid  of  the 
troops  of  Charles  the  Twelfth.     The  witty  Princess  Dolskaia 
gave  him  an  alphabet  in  cipher.     Up  to  that  time  Mazeppa  had 
delivered  to  the  Tsar  all  letters  tampering  with  his  fidelity, 
and,  in  return,  the  Tzar  surrendered  to  him  all  his  accusers. 
When    he  received  the  communication    of   the    princess    he 
smiled,  and  said,   "  Wicked  woman,  she  wants  to   draw  me 
away  from  the  Tsar."     He  did  not  give  up  the  letter,  but 
burned  it.     When  the  hand  of  Menshikof 's  sister  was  refused 
to  one  of  his  cousins,  when  Menshikof  himself  began  to  give 
direct  orders  to  the  commanders  of  the  Ukrainian  regiments, 
when  the  Swedish  war  and  the  march  of  the  Muscovite  troops 
limited  his  power  and  augmented  the  burdens  of  his  territory, 
when  the  Tsar  sent  pressing   injunctions  for  the  equipment 
of  the  army  in  European  style,  when  he  felt  around  him  the 


48  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  1. 

spirit  of  rebellion  against  Moscow,  he  wrote  to  Leshtchinski, 
saying  that  he  did  not  think  the  Pohsh  army  sufficiently 
strong,  but  assuring  him  of  his  good  will.  His  confidant, 
Orlik,  was  in  the  secret  of  all  his  intrigues.  Some  of  his 
subordinates  who  had  penetrated  his  designs  made  another 
attempt  to  denounce  him  to  the  Tsar :  among  these  were 
Palei,  celebrated  in  the  songs  of  the  Ukraina;  Kotchubey, 
whose  daughter  Mazeppa  had  seduced ;  and  Colonel  Iskra, 
The  information  was  very  exact,  and  revealed  his  secret  con- 
ferences with  the  emissaries  of  the  King  and  of  Princess 
Dolskaia.  It  failed,  like  former  denunciations,  through  the 
blind  confidence  of  Peter.  When  the  denunciation  was  re- 
peated, the  Tsar  began  to  suspect,  not  that  Mazeppa  was 
playing  the  traitor,  but  that  Kotchubey  and  his  friends  were 
trying  to  overthrow  the  hetman  and  raise  the  Ukraina  in 
revolt.  Kotchubey  and  Iskra  were  invited  to  Vitepsk,  where 
they  renewed  the  accusation  in  writing.  Mazeppa  was 
charged  by  Kotchubey  with  the  intention  of  deserting  from 
the  service  of  the  Tsar.  Iskra,  on  the  other  hand,  declared 
that  Mazeppa  was  planning  to  have  the  Tsar  assassinated, 
and  that  he  had  gathered  his  information  from  Kotchubey. 
Kotchubey  denied  that  he  had  ever  spoken  with  Iskra  on  the 
subject.  They  were  both  tortured,  forced  to  confess  themselves 
false  witnesses,  delivered  up  to  the  hetman,  and  beheaded. 
Palei  was  sent  to  Siberia.  Mazeppa  was  conscious  that  such 
extraordinary  good  fortune  could  not  last,  and  the  malcontents 
urged  him  to  think  of  their  common  safety.  At  this  moment 
Charles  the  Twelfth  arrived  in  the  neighborhood  of  Little 
Russia.  "  The  devil  has  brought  him,"  cried  Mazeppa ;  and 
he  tried,  by  his  skill  in  playing  a  double  game  with  the  two 
powers,  to  save  the  independence  of  his  little  State,  without  de- 
livering himself  over  completely  either  to  Charles  the  Twelfth 
or  Peter  the  Great.  When  the  latter  invited  him  to  join  the 
army,  he  pretended  that  he  was  ill,  and  even  received  extreme 
unction. 


1682-1709.]  PETER   THE    GREAT.  49 

But  Meiishikof  and  Charles  were  approaching,  —  a  choice 
must  be  made.  Mazeppa  left  his  bed,  assembled  his  colonels 
and  a  considerable  force  of  Cossacks,  harangued  them  on  what 
they  had  suffered  and  were  likely  to  suffer  from  the  hard  yoke 
of  the  Russians,  and  invited  them  to  follow  his  example  and 
join  the  Swedes,  who  with  their  aid  would  soon  force  the  "Tsar 
to  accede  to  whatever  condition  he  might  see  fit  to  impose. 
The  Cossacks,  however,  declined  to  become  traitors,  and  Ma- 
zeppa, with  only  four  or  live  thousand,  crossed  the  Desna  to 
effect  a  junction  with  the  Swedish  army.  Three  days  after- 
wards all  but  forty  or  fifty  returned  to  their  allegiance.  Then 
Peter  the  Great  made  a  proclamation  denouncing  the  treason 
of  Mazeppa,  his  alliance  with  the  heretics,  his  plot  to  restore 
the  Ukraina  to  Poland,  and  to  fill  the  monasteries  and  temples 
of  God  with  Uniates.  He  was  cursed  in  all  the  churches  of 
Russia.  Baturin,  his  capital,  was  taken  by  Menshikof,  with  an 
army  of  twenty  thousand  men,  who  expected  to  find  great 
riches  ;  but,  being  disappointed,  they  sacked  it  and  murdered 
all  the  inhabitants,  men,  women  and  children,  and  finally  set 
fire  to  it.  His  accomplices,  whom  he  had  abandoned,  died  on 
the  wheel  and  the  gibbet;  he  himself  fled,  after  the  battle 
of  Poltava,  to  the  Turkish  territory,  and  perished  miserably 
at  Bender.  A  new  hetman,  Skoropadski,  was  elected  in  his 
stead  ;  the  mass  of  the  people  and  the  Cossack  army  pro- 
nounced loudly  for  the  Tsar,  and  the  Swedes  had  to  cope  with 
the  rising  of  the  entire  population  of  the  Ukraina.  In  spite 
of  this,  the  independence  of  Little  Russia  was  past.  The 
privileges  of  the  Cossacks  were  over,  and  twelve  hundred  of 
them  were  sent  to  work  at  the  Canal  of  Ladoga.  A  Musco- 
vite official  was  joined  to  Skoropadski  to  govern  "  in  concert 
with  the  advice  of  the  hetman."  Muscovite  subjects  were 
allowed  to  hold  lands  in  the  Ukraina  by  the  same  title  as  the 
Little  Russians  ;  Menshikof  and  Shafirof  were  given  large 
domains  there  by  Skoropadski,  whose  daughter  married  an- 
other Muscovite,  Tolstoi",  created  commandant  of  the  regiment 


50  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  I. 

of  Niezliin.  In  seventeen  hundred  and  twenty-two  Little 
Russia,  whose  affairs  up  to  that  time  had  been  conducted  by 
the  department  of  Foreign  Affairs,  was  governed  by  a  special 
office  founded  at  Moscow  under  the  name  of  "  Little  Russian 
Affairs."  This  was  clear  proof  that  the  Ukraina  had  ceased 
to  be  an  independent  State.  When  Skoropadski  died,  Peter 
neglected  to  nominate  a  successor,  declaring  that  "  the  trea- 
sons of  the  preceding  hetmans  did  not  allow  a  decision  to 
be  made  lightly  in  this  grave  matter  of  election,  and  that  he 
needed  time  to  find  a  man  of  assured  fidelity." 

From  this  time  the  institutions  of  the  Ukraina  were  modified 
at  the  will  of  Peter  the  Great  and  his  successors.  The  hetman- 
ate  was  now  abolished,  now  restored,  till  the  last  man  who 
held  the  title,  a  courtier  of  Catherine  the  Second,  abdicated 
in  seventeen  hundred  and  eighty-nine.  The  affairs  of  the 
Ukraina  were  sometimes  directed  by  the  office  of  Little  Russia, 
sometimes  by  the  office  of  Foreign  Affairs,  till  the  time  when, 
under  Catherine  the  Second,  it  became  an  integral  part  of  the 
empire.  As  to  the  Zaporoshtsui,  after  their  "  setcha"  had 
been  taken  by  Peter  the  Great,  they  emigrated  to  the  Crimea, 
and  were  allowed  ■  by  the  Empress  Anna  to  establish  them- 
selves on  the  Lower  Dnieper.  But  they  found  the  neighbor- 
ing country  already  transformed  ;  and  as  their  existence  seemed 
incompatible  with  the  security  of  those  who  had  become  colo- 
nists, they  were  finally  expelled  in  seventeen  hundred  and 
seventy-five. 

From  the  year  seventeen  hundred  and  nine  we  may  say 
that  there  no  longer  existed  in  the  empire  a  single  military 
force  that  could  oppose  its  privileges  to  the  will  of  the  Tsar. 


CHAPTER  11. 

PETER    THE    GREAT  :      STRUGGLE    WITH 
CHARLES    THE    TWELFTH. 

1700-1709. 

Battle   of   Narva  (1700) :  Conquest   of   the  Baltic    Provinces. - 
Charles  the  Twelfth  invades  Eussia  :  Battle  of  Poltava  (1709). 


BATTLE   OF  NARVA:    CONQUEST    OF    THE   BALTIC 
PROVINCES. 

PETER  THE  EIRST  had  navigated  the  White  Sea,  and 
conquered  a  port  oij  the  Sea  of  Azof;  but  by  the  Baltic 
alone  could  he  secure  rapid  and  regular  communication  with 
the  nations  of  the  West.  It  was  only  by  taking  up  a  position  on 
the  Baltic  that  Russia  could  cease  to  be  an  Oriental  State,  and 
could  form  part  of  Europe.  The  Baltic  at  that  time  belonged 
to  Sweden,  which  by  its  possessions,  by  Finland,  Karelia,  Ingria, 
Esthonia,  Livonia,  and  Pomerania,  occupied  the  whole  extent 
of  its  coasts  and  made  it  a  Swedish  Mediterranean.  Stock- 
holm was  situated  in  the  centre  of  the  monarchy  of  the  Vasas, 
iustead  of  lying,  as  it  does  at  present,  on  its  maritime  frontier. 
For  the  Tsar  to  "  open  a  window "  into  the  West,  it  was 
necessary  in  some  point  to  break  the  chain  of  Swedish  posses- 
sions. The  opportunity  seemed  favorable.  The  struggle  in 
Sweden  between  the  aristocracy  and  the  crown  was  still  in 
progress ;  the  last  King,  Charles  the  Eleventh,  in  sixteen  hun- 
dred and  eighty,  had  made  his  authority  absolute,  and  had 
ordered  the  nobles  to  restore  to  the  throne  all  the  crown  lands 
which   had  been  alienated  since  sixteen  hundred  and  nine. 


52  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  II. 

This  edict  of  resumption,  which  was  warranted  by  the  peasants, 
citizens,  and  clergy,  who  had  nothing  to  lose,  and  which  was 
scarcely  mitigated  by  a  promise  of  indemnity,  ruined  the  aris- 
tocracy. In  Livonia  especially,  the  German  nobility,  who  were 
descendants  of  the  old  Order,  protested  strongly  many  times, 
but  all  their  protests  were  either  entirely  neglected  or  were 
refused  with  expressions  of  open  displeasure.  In  sixteen 
hundred  and  eighty-eight,  moreover,  they  were  commanded  to 
restore  all  the  lands  which  had  ever  belonged  to  the  crown, 
whether  they  had  been  purchased  or  presented.  In  the  follow- 
ing year  the  King  ordered  them  to  send  deputies  in  behalf  of  a 
revision  of  their  privileges.  Accordingly  they  sent  Gustav  Bud- 
berg  and  John  Hheinhold  Patkul,  who  complained  that  if  the 
resumption  should  take  effect,  the  nobles  would  be  deprived 
of  all  their  possessions.  These  complaints,  however,  were  not 
listened  to,  and  the  deputies  left  Stockholm  to  lay  before  the 
diet  of  sixteen  hundred  and  ninety-two  the  result  of  their  en- 
deavors. Thereupon  they  sent  a  new  deputation  to  the  King, 
Charles  the  Eleventh,  with  Patkul  at  its  head.  lie  was  a 
proud,  energetic,  vindictive,  and  intelligent  man,  whose  free 
speech  displeased  the  King ;  and  as  his  colleagues  supported 
him  in  all  his  acts,  he  and  they  were  arrested,  carried  before 
a  court-martial,  and  condemned  to  death  on  the  charge  of 
using  treasonable  language.  Patkul,  whose  private  property 
did  not  suffer  from  the  resumption,  but  whose  strong  sense  of 
the  rights  of  the  nobility  had  made  him  espouse  the  cause 
of  his  coiuitry,  being  now  an  outlaw,  in  danger  of  death, 
his  riches  confiscated,  his  conscience  free  from  the  sense  of 
disloyalty,  managed  to  escape,  and  burning  with  rage  he 
sought  on  all  sides  enemies  of  Charles  the  Eleventh  and  his 
young  son  Charles  the  Twelfth.  He  continually  was  devising 
ways  and  means  to  free  Livonia  from  the  A^oke  of  Sweden. 
Eor  some  time  he  remained  at  the  Court  of  Brandenburg,  but 
at  the  fall  of  the  minister,  Dankelmann,  he  succeeded  in  gain- 
ing the  good  will  of  Baron  Flemniing,  the  favorite  of  the  new 


1700-1709.]  PETER   THE    GREAT.  53 

King  of  Poland,  Augustus  of  Saxony.  Augustus,  as  well  as 
the  Tsar  of  Russia,  found  in  liitn  the  instrument  which  they 
needed  for  their  common  plans.  He  proposed  to  the  King  of 
Poland  a  scheme  by  which  Sweden  was  to  be  attacked  simul- 
taneously by  all  its  neighbors.  Poland  was  to  take  Livonia 
and  Esthonia,  Russia  was  to  conquer  Ingria  and  Karelia, 
Denmark  was  to  invade  Holstein,  which  belonged  to  a  brother- 
in-law  of  Charles  the  Twelfth.  Peter  accepted  the  overtures 
of  the  King  of  Poland  :  he  desired  nothing  better  than  to 
carry  out  the  designs  of  Ivan  the  Terrible  and  of  his  father 
Alexis.  The  youth  of  the  new  King  of  Sweden,  and  his 
reputed  incapacity,  led  Peter  to  expect  speedy  success.  Peter 
the  First  acceded  to  the  coalition  by  virtue  of  the  Treaty  of 
Preobrazhenskoe.  In  the  manifesto  by  which  he  declared 
war,  he  took  pains  to  recall  his  grievances,  puerile  though 
they  were,  against  the  governor  of  Riga. 

When  Peter  appeared  under  the  walls  of  Narva,  in  October, 
seventeen  hundred,  Patkul  at  first  rejoiced,  but  speedily  be- 
came uneasy;  he  had  not  intended  that  Narva  should  be 
attacked  by  the  Russians,  but  advised  Augustus  not  to  raise 
the  question.  The  coalition  was  almost  immediately  assailed 
by  two  unexpected  blows.  Frederic  the  Fourth,  the  new  King 
of  Denmark,  whom  Charles  threatened  in  Copenhagen,  had 
been  forced  to  sign  the  Ti-eaty  of  Traventhal,  and  at  the  ap- 
proach of  the  Swedes  the  King  of  Poland  had  been  forced  to 
raise  the  siege  of  Riga.  Without  waiting  to  pnrsue  the  Poles, 
Charles,  hearing  that  Peter  was  besieging  Narva,  turned  against 
the  Russians.  After  a  severe  four  days'  march  he  reached  an 
outpost  four  miles  from  the  city,  which  was  held  by  Genei-al 
Sheremetief  with  six  thousand  cavalry.  In  his  impatience  to 
capture  this,  though  it  was  already  dusk,  Charles  fired  a  few 
shots,  which  had  the  effect  of  so  frightening  Sheremetief,  that 
he  fled  with  all  his  troops  and  reported  that  twenty  thousand 
Swedes  had  captured  the  outpost  and  were  on  the  M'ay  to  the 
Russian  camp. 


54  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  II. 

A  desire  to  please  the  victors  has  caused  the  numerical 
disproportion  between  the  two  armies  to  be  exaggerated. 
Voltaire  himself  was  forced  to  rectify,  in  his  "  History  of 
Peter  the  Great,"  the  numbers  that  he  had  given  in  the 
"History  of  Charles  the  Twelfth."  The  latter  had  hardly 
eight  thousand  four  hundred  and  thirty  men  ;  the  Russians 
amounted  to  sixty-three  thousand  five  hundred  men,  of  whom 
only  forty  thousand  took  part  in  the  action.  The  army  was 
composed  of  regular  troops,  beside  streltsui,  Cossacks,  men-at- 
arms,  and  soldiers  hastily  levied.  In  the  absence  of  the  Tsar, 
w^ho  with  Golovin  and  Menshikof  had  quitted  the  camp  on 
the  previous  evening  to  hasten  the  arrival  of  the  reinforce- 
ments which  Repnin  and  Mazeppa  were  to  bring,  it  was 
placed  under  the  command  of  an  old  general  of  the  Emperor 
of  Germany,  the  Herzog  von  Croi,  whom  the  troops  suspected 
from  the  fact  that  he  was  a  foreigner,  and  who  had  no  sup- 
port from  the  other  generals.  While  they  were  besieging 
Narva  they  had  at  their  backs  the  Narova,  or  river  of  Narva, 
and  occupied  a  fortified  line  of  seven  versts,  or  nearly  seven 
thousand  five  hundred  meters,  the  whole  extent  of  which  it 
was  impossible  to  defend.  In  some  places  there  was  ordy  a 
single  line  of  soldiers,  placed  about  two  meters  apart  from  one 
another.  In  front,  near  the  centre,  they  had  erected  a  great 
battery;  before  the  entrenchments,  on  the  road  to  Revel,  were 
outposts  to  the  number  of  four  thousand  men. 

On  the  thirtieth,  or,  according  to  the  old  style,  the  nine- 
teenth of  November,  seventeen  hundred,  the  battle  began 
by  a  cannonade  that  lasted  till  two  in  the  afternoon.  At 
that  time  the  Swedes,  though  thoroughly  exhausted  by  their 
long  march,  reached  the  foot  of  the  entrenchments  under 
cover  of  a  snow-storm,  which  prevented  the  Russians  from 
seeing  twenty  paces  in  front.  In  an  instant  the  Swedes 
crossed  the  fosse  and  the  parapet,  and  the  Russian  camp  was 
seized  with  panic.  "  The  Germans  have  betrayed  us,"  cried 
the  soldiers,  and  began  to  4nassacre  not  only  the  German  offi- 


1700-1709.]  PETER  THE   GREAT.  55 

cers,  but  the  women  who  were  in  the  camp.  The  Herzog  von 
Croi  and  his  staff  saw  no  refuge  from  their  own  soldiers  except 
in  surrendering  themselves  to  the  mercy  of  the  Swedish  com- 
mander, GrafStenbock.  Almost  before  tlie  Swedes  had  struck 
a  blow,  Sheremetief,  with  the  cavalry,  abandoned  the  field, 
deserted  the  infantry,  and  hurried  to  the  river  Narova,  which 
he  succeeded  in  swimming  just  below  the  falls  of  loala,  where 
the  water  was  deep  and  rapid,  and  more  than  a  thousand  men 
were  lost  in  the  passage.  The  right  wing  attempted  to  cross 
the  bridge  which  led  to  the  island  of  Kamperholm,  where  the 
Tsar's  headquarters  were  situated  ;  but  the  mass  of  struggling 
soldiers  broke  down  the  bridge,  and  the  others,  seeing  before 
them  the  raging  stream  Hlled  witli  the  bodies  of  their  com- 
panions, and  behind  them  the  pitiless  Swedes,  betook  them- 
selves to  some  barracks  not  far  from  the  bank,  and  fortified 
themselves  as  best  they  coidd,  by  means  of  the  artillery  and 
bao-o-asre  wasfons.  Here  the  Preobrazhenski  and  Semenovski 
regiments,  which  were  the  favorites  of  Peter  the  Great,  and 
had  been  organized  after  the  European  fashion,  defended 
themselves  with  the  energy  of  despair.  Charles,  hearing  the 
tumult  of-  battle  in  this  direction,  sent  the  infantry  of  his 
victorious  right  wing  to  march  against  this  redoubt,  and 
hastened  in  person  to  superintend  the  attack.  But,  in  spite 
of  this  gallant  defence,  the  Russian  army  was  cut  in  two  by 
the  capture  of  the  great  central  battery.  Night  came  on,  and 
increased  the  disorder.  The  wing,  commanded  by  Dolgoruki, 
Golovin,  Buturlin,  and  Alexander,  Tsarevitch  of  Imeritia, 
entered  into  negotiations  with  the  King  ;  the  generals  signed 
a  capitulation  which  insured  them  a  free  retreat  with  arnis, 
standards,  and  baggage,  but  they  had  to  abandon  all  their 
artillery  except  six  pieces  of  cannon.  The  Preobrazhenski 
and  Semenovski  guards  left  their  fortress  of  wagons,  and 
retired  in  good  order,  and  to  hasten  their  retreat  the  Swedes 
themselves  built  them  a  bridge  over  the  Narova,  The  left 
wing,  which  had  caused  more  trouble  to  the  King,  was  obliged 


56  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  II. 

to  sign  a  more  rigorous  capitulation  :  it  was  allowed  to  retire, 
but  had  to  lay  down  its  arms.  Charles  the  Twelfth  then 
allowed  the  Russian  army  to  cross  the  river,  neither  from 
generosity  nor  disdain,  as  has  sometimes  been  said,  but  from 
prudence.  Wrede,  the  Swedish  general,  writes :  "  If  the 
Russian  general,  Weide,  who  had  six  thousand  men  under 
arms,  had  had  the  courage  to  attack  us,  we  should  have  been 
lost ;  we  were  completely  exhausted,  having  had  neither  rest 
nor  food  for  many  days,  and  our  soldiers  were  so  intoxicated 
with  the  wine  that  they  found  in  the  Russian  camp,  that  it 
would  have  been  impossible  to  restore  order."  The  King  of 
Sweden,  by  slightly  straining  the  terms  of  capitulation,  re- 
tained as  prisoners  Croi  and  the  officers  who  had  taken  refuge 
in  his  camp.  Among  the  more  distinguished  of  the  Russian 
generals  who  were  taken  were  Prince  Dolgoruki,  Artemon 
Golovin,  Trubretskoi,  Governor  of  Novgorod,  Buturlin,  and 
Alexander  Gordon.  ]\Iany  remained  for  twenty  years  in 
Sweden.  Besides  the  prisoners,  the  Russians  had  lost  six 
thousand  men,  the  Swedes  nearly  a  third  of  that  number. 

There  are  salutary  defeats  and  fatal  victories.  Charles  was 
overwhelmed  by  flatteries  from  the  whole  of  Europe.  Medals 
were  struck  in  his  honor,  with  the  inscriptions,  "  Superant 
operata  fidem,"  or  again,  "  Tres  uno  contudit  ictu."  The 
young  King  could  not  entirely  shake  off  the  intoxication  of  his 
success.  "  He  dreams  of  nothing  but  war,"  writes  his  gen- 
eral, Stenbock ;  "  he  no  longer  listens  to  advice ;  he  behaves 
as  one  who  thinks  that  God  directly  inspires  him  for  what  he 
has  to  do."  He  despised  enemies  who  were  so  easily  con- 
quered, and,  counting  the  Russian  army  for  nothing,  made 
great  preparations  for  the  downfall  of  the  harmless  King  of 
Poland.  During  five  years  he  did  notliing  but  plot  for  his 
dethronement ;  meddling  in  the  intrigues  of  the  Polish  diets, 
and  trying  to  crush  the  partisans  of  Augustus,  as  if  the  ele- 
vation and  support  of  Stanislas  Leshtchinski  had  been  really 
of  vital  importance  to  Sweden  in  the  same  way  as  the  posses- 


1700-1709.]  PETER  THE   GREAT.  57 

sion  of  its  maritime  provinces.  Peter  understood  how  much 
it  was  for  his  advantage  that  his  rival  should  be  thus  occu- 
pied ;  he  aided  Augustus  of  Saxony  with  troops  and  money,  in 
order  to  keep  his  own  hands  free  in  the  regions  of  the  Baltic. 
It  was  enough  for  him  to  know  that  the  impetuous  King  of 
Sweden  was  for  some  time  entangled  among  the  marshes  and 
intrigues  of  Poland. 

Peter  took  courage  after  Narva.  Nothing  was  really  lost, 
since  the  greater  part  of  his  army  remained  intact ;  he  had 
only  to  turn  to  profit  this  harsh  lesson  in  the  military  art.  He 
increased  the  fortifications  of  Pskof,  Novgorod,  and  the  fron- 
tier towns ;  every  one  was  set  to  work.  By  terrible  examples 
he  frio;htened  robbers  of  treasure  and  dishonest  officials. 
Melting  down  the  church  and  convent  bells  of  Moscow,  he 
cast  several  hundred  camion  ;  he  created  ten  new  regiments, 
each  consisting  of  a  thousand  dragoons.  Pie  sent  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  children  to  the  military  schools. 

In  December,  seventeen  hundred  and  one,  the  year  after 
the  defeat  at  Narva,  Sheremetief  attacked  the  Swedish  general 
Slipenbach,  near  the  village  of  Errestfer,  in  Livonia.  The 
Russians  were  the  more  numerous,  but  it  was  an  advance  to 
conquer  the  Swedes,  even  at  odds  of  three  to  one.  Out  of 
seven  thousand  men  Slipenbach  lost  three  thousand  five  hun- 
dred, and  only  three  hundred  and  fifty  prisoners  were  taken,  — 
a  fact  which  proves  the  fierceness  of  the  fighting.  This 
"  eldest  of  Russian  victories  "  was  celebrated  at  Moscow  by 
a  triumphal  procession,  in  which  the  arms,  guns,  and  banners 
of  the  vanquished  were  displayed.  Sheremetief  was  created 
field-marshal,  and  was  decorated  with  the  order  of  Saint 
Andrew  ;  and  Peter  wrote,  "  Glory  be  to  God  !  we  have  reached 
so  far  that  we  can  conquer  the  Swedes  fighting  two  to  one, 
but  soon  we  shall  be  able  to  beat  also  with  even  numbers." 
During  the  winter  of  seventeen  hundred  and  two  the  Tsar 
spent  much  time  and  money  upon  his  vessels  on  Lake  Peipus, 
and  in  the  latter  part  of  May  the  new  Russian  fleet  encoun- 


58  HISTORY  OF  RUSSIA.  [Chap.  II. 

tered  a  small  number  of  Swedish  ships  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Embach.  The  Russians  completely  surrounded  the  little 
Swedish  flotilla,  but  a  brave  resistance  was  offered,  and  only 
after  a  hard  fight  were  the  Swedes  conquered.  In  July 
Captain  Hokeflykt  was  making  a  voyage  of  inspection  in  a 
yacht,  when  he  was  surrounded  by  two  hundred  Russian  gal- 
leys. He  defended  himself  for  an  hour,  hoping  in  vain  for 
aid ;  and  then,  seeing  no  hope,  he  blew  his  vessel  up,  destroy- 
ing at  the  same  time  twenty  Russian  galleys  which  lay  near 
him.  The  same  year  Sheremetief  again  defeated  Slipenbach 
at  Hiimmelsdorff,  in  a  four  hours'  battle,  took  from  him  all 
his  artillery,  and  killed  six  thousand  out  of  his  eight  thousand 
men.  According  to  the  Swedes,  they  had  but  six  thousand 
men  and  the  Russians  fifty  thousand ;  but  the  Russians  claim 
to  have  had  but  twenty  thousand  men. 

The  ultimate  aim  of  Peter  was  the  possession  of  the  Neva, 
which  had  belonged  to  the  early  Russian  princes,  and  where 
Saint  Alexander  Nevski  had  won  his  glorious  surname  by 
victories  over  Swedish  enemies.  He  still  held  his  position 
as  captain  of  the  bombadier  company  of  the  Preobrazhenski 
regiment.  Menshikof  acted  as  lieutenant  in  the  same  com- 
pany,  and  was  appointed  commander  of  this  important  for- 
tress. Hastening  down  from  Arkhangel,  where  he  had  been 
expecting  an  attack  from  the  Swedish  fleet,  he  assisted  in 
the  capture  of  Noteburg,  the  ancient  Oreshek,  or  Little  Nut, 
of  the  Novgorodians,  which  was  situated  on  a  small  island 
and  commanded  the  Neva  where  it  leaves  Lake  Ladoga. 
He  called  it  Schliisselburg,  or  the  fortress  of  the  key,  because 
the  post  would  make  him  master  of  the  river.  Near  the 
mouth  of  the  Neva  the  Swedes  held  the  small  fort  of 
Nienschantz ;  he  captured  and  destroyed  it,  and  in  a  neigh- 
boring island  he  founded  the  citadel  around  which  his  future 
capital  was  to  cluster ;  the  islet  of  Cronslot  became  Cron- 
stadt,  which  was  to  close  against  the  Scandinavians  the 
entrance  on  the  side  of  the  sea.     The  Neva  was  his.     The 


1700-1709.]  PETER   THE   GREAT.  59 

same  year,  seventeen  hundred  and  three,  he  seized  two 
Swedish  vessels  in  its  waters,  —  "an  unheard-of  success,"  as 
he  expressed  it  in  a  letter  to  Moscow.  Then  Koporie,  lam, 
and  Dorpat,  which  had  once  been  a  vassal  city  of  Novgorod, 
fell  into  his  hands,  and  he  revenged  himself  for  his  defeat  at 
Narva  by  capturing  that  town  in  seventeen  hundred  and  four, 
but  he  protected  the  citizens  froui  his  own  soldiers,  who  were 
thirstino-  for  blood.  Nevertheless,  three  thousand  men  were 
occupied  for  three  hours  in  piling  the  bodies  of  the  dead  and 
dying  upon  wagons,  and  in  throwing  them  into  the  Narova. 
During  this  time  Livonia  and  Esthonia,  provinces  inherited 
by  Charles  the  Twelfth,  were  given  up  to  frightful  devasta- 
tion, worse  than  that  of  the  Palatinate  by  Louis  the  Four- 
teenth. The  days  of  Ivan  the  Terrible  seemed  to  have 
returned.  The  Russians  signalized  the  reconquest  of  their 
ancient  territory  by  atrocities.  Volmar,  Venden,  and  Vesen 
were  pillaged ;  Sheremetief  spared  only  Riga,  Pernava,  and 
Revel,  or  Kobyvan,  as  it  was  called  by  the  Tchudi.  On  the 
third  of  September,  seventeen  hundred  and  two,  the  commander 
of  Marienburg,  situated  on  the  confines  of  Livonia  and  Ligria, 
found  himself  obliged  to  surrender  at  discretion.  But  as  the 
Russians  were  about  to  enter  the  town  the  powder-magazine 
was  exploded,  destroying  many  both  of  the  victors  and  of  the 
vanquished.  Among  the  three  hundred  and  fifty-six  persons 
who  were  captured  was  the  pastor  Gliick  and  his  family.  Cath- 
erine, a  girl  who  had  been  left  an  orphan  at  an  early  age,  was 
a  servant  in  this  family.  Two  days  before  she  had  been  mar- 
ried to  a  Swedish  soldier,  whom  she  never  saw  again.  She 
became  Sheremetief's  mistress,  and  afterwards  held  the  same 
position  in  the  house  of  Menshikof,  where  the  Tsar  saw  her 
and  was  captivated  by  her  beauty  and  intelligence.  Li  the 
seventeenth  year  of  her  age  she  became  his  mistress,  and  three 
years  later  he  married  her  privately.  One  would  have  to 
search  long  to  find  a  more  romantic  story  than  that  of  the 
captive  waiting-maid  of  Marienburg,  soon  to  be  Empress  of 
all  the  Russias. 


60  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  II. 

The  Letto-Fiimish  country  was  made  a  desert;  the  Cos- 
sacks, Kahnuicki,  Bashkirs,  and  Tatars  did  not  know  what  to 
do  with  their  prisoners.  The  Zaporoshtsui  alone  carried  four 
thousand  captives  —  men,  women,  and  children  —  back  to  the 
LovA^er  Dnieper.  This  year,  also,  the  Tsar  marched  in  a  mag- 
nificent triumphal  procession  through  Moscow,  and,  consider- 
ing the  successes  which  he  won  during  the  campaign,  he  had 
even  greater  cause  for  rejoicing  than  the  year  before,  when 
he  himself  was  decorated  by  Golovin  with  the  ribbon  of  the 
order  of  Saint  Andrew  for  personal  bravery.  But  neither 
the  capture  of  the  fortresses,  the  burning  of  the  towns,  nor 
the  extermination  of  the  people  could  distract  Charles  the 
Twelfth  from  the  attempt  to  ruin  Augustus.  In  July,  seven- 
teen hundred  and  five,  the  Polish  nobility  had  been  obliged 
to  proceed  to  the  election  of  a  new  king,  and,  notwithstanding 
the  efforts  of  the  Supreme  Pontiff,  the  Cardinal  Primate  and 
the  nobles  elected  Stanislas  Leshtchinski,  Avhom  the  Pi'otes- 
tant  King  of  Sweden  caused  to  be  acknowledged  by  the 
majority  of  the  Poles.  Three  Swedish^  regiments  met  ten 
thousand  Poles,  Lithuanians,  and  Saxons,  near  Warsaw,  and 
after  a  hard  fight  of  six  hours  overcame  them.  Among  the 
prisoners  was  the  Saxon  major-general,  Paykul,  a  Livonian  by 
birth,  who  had  settled  in  Prussia  when  a  boy.  Nevertheless, 
he  Avas  sent  to  Stockholm  as  a  traitor,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of 
Patkul,  his  friend  and  countryman,  Avho  soon  afterwards  was 
to  meet  a  worse  fate. 

In  seventeen  hundred  and  five  the  Tsar  felt  that  it  was 
necessary  to  keep  an  eye  on  the  actions  of  the  Swede  in 
Poland,  and  not  to  allow  his  ally,  Augustus,  to  be  entirely 
crushed.  It  was  enou2;h  to  have  taken  from  him  his  share 
of  the  booty,  Esthonia  and  Livonia.  The  Russians  crossed  the 
Uwina,  occupied  Kurland  and  Vilna,  and  concentrated  them- 
selves in  an  entrenched  camp  at  Grodno.  Peter,  like  Ivan 
the  Terrible,  had  to  struggle  not  with  his  external  enemies 
alone  ;  the  internal  factions  had  not  yet  been  subdued.    At  the 


1700-1709.]  PETEE   THE    GREAT.  61 

beginning  of  the  j'ear  seventeen  hundred  and  five  he  received 
information  that  the  Bashkirs  and  several  other  Tatar  tribes 
had  seized  arms  and  were  spreading  death  and  destruction  far 
and  wide,  even  to  the  gates  of  Kazan.     This  revolt  had  been 
caused  by  the  violent  acts  of  the  Russian  commissioner,  who 
had  taken  their  horses  and   insulted  their  religion.     In  order 
to  pacify  them  the  conunissioner  was  put  to  death ;  but  hardly 
had  this  revolt  been  quelled  when,  just  as  he  w^as  preparing 
to  give  battle  to  the  Swedes,  the  people  of  Astrakhan,  who 
had  been  falsely  told  that  Russian  marriages  were  forbidden 
for  seven  years,  during  which  time  only  foreigners  would  be 
allowed    to    marry   their   daughters,   hearing   that    Peter  had 
been  completely  defeated  at  the  battle  of  Gemauers,  revolted, 
and  murdered  the  governor  of  the  town.     Peter  was  obliged 
to  send  to  the  Lower  Volga  a  portion  of  his  troops  under 
Sheremetief,   one    of  his    best   generals.     It  was   time    that 
Sheremetief  arrived,  for   already  the   streltsui   of   Astrakhan 
had  appealed  for  help  to  the  Cossacks.     Fear  of  punishment 
only    increased    their   stubbornness.       The   city   gates    were 
barred,  the  walls  were  mounted  with  cannon,  and  the  suburbs 
were  reduced  to  ashes.     But  after  Sheremetief's  troops  had 
fired  the  first  shots  their  opponents  fled.     The  field-marshal 
led  his  three  thousand  men  boldly  against  the  ten  thousand 
who  were  in   revolt,  and   soon   reduced   them  to  obedience. 
The   leaders    of  the   insurrection    on    the  thirteenth   day  of 
March    surrendered    the    keys  of  the  city,  and   the  oath   of 
obedience  was  exacted  from  all  those  who  had  been  under 
arms.     Ninety  of  the  guiltiest  were  carried  to  Moscow  and 
put  to  death  ;  many  others  were  sent  to  distant  parts  of  the 
empire.     This  was  accomplished  by  Sheremetief  Avith  a  loss 
of  only  twenty  killed  and  thirty-five  wounded.      jVIeanwhile 
the  Russian  army  in  Lithuania  found  itself  for  an  instant  in 
great   straits :  Schulenburg,   the   general   of   Augustus,  who 
afterwards    became   famous    at   Corfu    in    the   war   with   the 
Turks,  thinking  to  save  the  King  at  Grodno,  advanced  boldiv 


62  HISTORY   OF   EUSSIA.  [Chap.  II. 

toward  Upper  Poland,  and  meeting  the  Swedes  under  Rhens- 
kold,  was  defeated  at  Fiaustadt  in  seventeen  hundred  and  six, 
and  forced  to  fall  back  on  Saxony.  But  by  means  of  Peter's 
skilful  generalship  the  Russian  army,  which  was  in  the 
greatest  danger  of  being  captured,  succeeded  in  retreating 
without  opposition  to  Kief. 

CHARLES  THE  TWELFTH  INVADES  RUSSIA:  BATTLE 

OF  POLTAVA. 

In  April,  seventeen  hundi-ed  and  six,  Charles  the  Twelfth 
crossed  the  Niemen  and  in  slow  stages  marched  to  Volliynia, 
where  he  delayed  manj^  days  with  the  double  purpose  of 
refreshing  his  men,  who  were  suffering  from  bad  winter-quar- 
ters, and  of  bringing  Radzivil  Tchartoruiski,  Lubomirski,  and 
other  powerful  partisans  of  Augustus  to  terms.  To  punish 
the  opposition  to  Stanislas  Leshtchniski  and  the  entrance  of 
Augustus  into  Warsaw,  he  crushed  the  Electoral  States  by  his 
extortions  and  requisitions,  and  burned  and  plundered  far 
and  wide.  Peter  was  awaiting  him  in  the  Ukraina,  Augustus 
in  Lithuania,  but  Charles,  to  whom  the  victory  of  Fraustadt 
had  given  free  passage,  turned  suddenly  into  Saxony  and 
united  his  forces  with  those  of  Rhenskold,  leaving  General 
Mardefeld  with  about  six  thousand  Swedes  and  fifteen  thou- 
sand Poles  and  Lithuanians.  As  soon  as  the  Tsar  learned  that 
the  King  of  Sweden  had  gone  into  Saxony,  he  sent  Menshikof 
with  ten  thousand  Russians  and  a  party  of  Cossacks  to  the 
assistance  of  Augustus.  Meanwhile  Augustus  had  secretly 
been  under  negotiations  with  Charles,  whereby  he  agreed  to 
acknowledge  Stanislas  Leshtchniski  as  King  of  Poland  and 
to  break  with  the  Tsar.  But  not  daring  to  confess  this  treaty 
to  the  Russians,  he  was  obliged  to  allow  Menshikof  to  engage 
in  battle  at  Kalish  with  Mardefeld,  who  knew  nothing  of  the 
treaty  and  was  completely  defeated.  Charles  remained  in 
Saxony,  levying  enormous  taxes  upon  the  inhabitants  and 
living  at  the  expense  of  the  land.     He  traversed  Silesia  with- 


1700-1709.]  PETEJl  THE    GREAT.  63 

out  deigning  to  ask  leave  of  the  Emperor  Joseph,  despising 
the  protestations  of  the  diet  of  Ratisbon;  he  received  the 
complaints  of  the  Protestants  of  this  province  who  were  per- 
secuted by  Austria,  and  appeared  before  the  malcontents  of 
Hungary  as  the  great  redresser  of  wrongs.  This  happened 
at  the  most  critical  moment  in  the  war  of  the  Spanish  Suc- 
cession. France,  defeated  at  Hochstadt,  Ramillies,  and  Turin, 
was  looking  for  help  from  victorious  Sweden.  England, 
Holland,  Austria,  Brandenburg,  Hanover,  all  the  powers  con- 
cerned in  the  attack  on  the  French  frontiers,  trembled  lest 
the  Swedish  army  should  assail  the  coalition  in  the  rear. 
Had  not  Sweden  been  the  ally  of  France  since  the  time  of 
Gustavus  Adolphus  and  of  Oxenstiern  ?  Had  not  the  Swedes 
been  the  companions  of  the  French  in  their  days  of  glory? 
Did  they  not  owe  to  France  their  great  influence  in  Ger- 
many? Had  they  not  to  fear  lest  they  might  suffer  from 
the  defeat  of  France  ?  Was  not  Charles  the  Twelfth  at  this 
moment  receiving  subsidies  from  the  Grand  Monarque  ?  Was 
not  his  help  entreated  by  the  French  envoys?  The  fate  of 
the  world  seemed  to  lie  in  the  hands  of  the  young  victor. 
If  he  turned  to  the  West,  if  he  revenged  his  own  grievances 
and  those  of  Protestantism  against  Austria,  France  was  saved, 
and  Sweden,  for  whom  feai-ful  misfortunes  were  in  store  on 
the  plains  of  Russia,  was  saved  also.  There  was  a  pause  of 
anxious  and  solemn  expectation,  all  the  greater  because  the 
proud  and  silent  monarch  had  allowed  no  hint  of  his  projects 
to  escape  him.  The  situation  appeared  so  grave  that  in  April, 
seventeen  hundred  and  seven,  Marlborough  resolved  to  seek 
him  in  his  camp.  Few  words  were  exchanged  between  these 
two  great  generals,  whose  characters  were  so  unlike,  but  the 
clever  Englishman  was  able  to  guess  Charles's  hatred  and 
jealousy  of  France;  he  saw  that  his  eyes  glittered  at  the 
mention  of  the  Tsar ;  he  noticed  a  map  of  Russia  spread 
out  on  the  tal)le.  Marlborough  retired  full  of  hope.  Those 
who  feared  Charles  agreed  to  whatever  he  proposed  to  them ; 


64  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  II. 

Augustus  accepted  the  humiliating  treaty  which  his  plenipo- 
tentiaries had  signed  at  Altranstadt,  by  which  he  abdicated 
the  throne  and  delivered  up  Patkul,  whom  the  Tsar  had 
accredited  to  him  as  ambassador.  The  Emperor  relinquished 
a  hundred  churches  to  the  Protestants  of  Silesia,  dismissed  a 
chamberlain  of  whom  the  King  had  reason  to  complain,  sur- 
rendered fifteen  hundred  Russian  refugees,  and  recalled  four 
hundred  German  officers  who  had  taken  service  with  the 
Tsar.  The  Elector  of  Brandenburg  signed  a  perpetual  peace. 
Charles  the  Twelfth  might  now  break  up  his  camp  at  Leip- 
sic  ;  he  saw  only  one  enemy,  the  Tsar  of  Russia. 

Before,  however,  we  enter  upon  the  details  of  the  latter  part 
of  the  Northern  war,  it  seems  worth  while  to  pay  more  par- 
ticular attention  to  the  extraordinary  man  whose  misfortune  it 
was  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  son  of  Charles  the  Eleventh. 
Envy  at  his  success  and  jealousy  of  his  position  as  ambassa- 
dor of  the  Tsar  caused  Patkul  to  gain  many  enemies.  Augus- 
tus, though  he  openly  flattered  him  and  appeared  to  be  on 
terms  of  the  greatest  famiharity,  was  secretly  angry  Avith  him, 
because  he  had  complained  that  the  Polish  government  was 
considered  corrupt  by  all  the  courts  of  Eiu^ope.  The  wise 
advice  which  Patkul  freely  offered  the  King  was  worse  than 
wasted.  The  Saxon  government,  full  of  anger  and  hatred  of 
him,  had  long  been  seeking  a  pretext  to  get  rid  of  so  danger- 
ous a  person.  His  position  as  General-in-Chief  of  the  Rus- 
sian army  sent  to  the  King's  aid  made  him  personally 
responsible  to  Augustus.  But  he  found  himself  without  the 
means  to  support  his  troops,  who  complained  bitterly  of  their 
winter-quarters.  After  pawning  his  jewels,  and  reducing 
himself  to  the  greatest  straits,  in  order  to  prevent  his  forces 
from  starving,  he  found  himself  obliged  to  sign  an  agreement 
w^ith  Graf  von  Stratmann,  minister  plenipotentiary  of  the  Court 
of  Vienna,  by  which  his  seven  thousand  men  entered  the  ser- 
vice of  the  Emperor.  The  loss  of  that  number  was  of  no 
serious  consequence,  but  the  manner  in  which  the  troops  left 


nuO-1709.]  PETER  THE    GREAT.  65 

the  service  of  tlie  King  was  so  derogatory  to  the  honor  of  the 
latter,  that  it  seemed  Ukcly  to  cause  a  rupture  between  him 
and  the  Tsar.  In  order  to  prevent  the  Russian  troops  from 
taking  their  departure,  the  Secret  Council  determined  to  arrest 
Patkul.  Accordingly,  on  the  nineteenth  of  December,  seven- 
teen hundred  and  live.  Colonel  Brown,  with  an  escort  of  twenty 
men,  proceeded  to  Patkul's  lodgings.  It  was  ten  o'clock  at 
night.  The  house  was  perfectly  quiet.  Colonel  Brown,  on 
being  admitted,  roughly  woke  the  sleeping  minister,  and  seiz- 
ing him  by  the  hand,  said,  "  I  arrest  you  in  the  name  of  the 
King."  Patkul,  astonished  at  such  an  unexpected  summons, 
asked  where  he  was  to  be  taken,  and  was  assured :  "  To  the 
Secret  Council."  He  was  then  carried  in  a  Sedan-chair  to  the 
city  gate,  where,  after  waiting  an  hour,  a  coach  appeared  which 
brought  him  to  the  dungeon  of  Sonnenstein.  He  was  anxious 
to  know  whether  the  King  had  knowledge  of  the  indignity 
offered  to  the  Tsar's  minister,  and  then,  thinking  of  his  newly 
married  bride,  Anna  Sophia  von  Einsiedel,  he  became  very 
sad.  He  was  put  in  the  dungeon  and  treated  with  the  great- 
est brutality ;  he  w^as  allowed  no  servant,  no  bed  was  fur- 
nished him,  his  private  papers  were  taken  from  him,  and  he 
dared  not  eat  the  food  set  before  him  for  fear  that  it  was 
poisoned.  The  arrest  and  imprisonment  of  the  Tsar's  pleni- 
potentiary was  a  direct  violation  of  the  law  of  nations,  and 
created  great  surprise  throughout  Europe.  Graf  von  Strat- 
mann  demanded  of  the  council  security  for  his  personal  safety. 
The  Prince  Galitsuin,  though  he  was  considered  to  be  a  man 
without  resolution,  expressed  his  indignation  in  the  strongest 
terms.  The  Secret  Council  tried  to  exculpate  themselves  by 
bringing  the  severest  accusations  against  Patkul.  In  order  to 
pacify  the  Court  of  Vienna,  it  was  even  felt  necessary  to  spread 
the  rumor  that  the  Tsar  had  himself  ordered  his  arrest.  The 
King  approved  the  action  of  the  Secret  Council,  and  Peter 
refused  to  confirm  the  agreement  with  Stratmaim,  but  insisted 
that  Patkul  should  be  handed  over  to  him  as  the  condition  on 

VOL.    II.  5 


66  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  II. 

which  Augustus  shoukl  retain  the  reinforcements.  Patkul, 
however,  was  still  kept  in  prison,  and  in  order  to  make  him 
appear  guilty,  every  possible  form  of  slander  was  heaped  upon 
him.  He  was  charged  with  being  the  cause  of  the  misunder- 
standing between  the  Saxon  and  Prussian  Courts,  and  the 
loss  of  the  battle  of  Fraustadt  was  attributed  to  him.  In  June 
the  Tsar  wrote  that  he  saw  no  proof  of  his  treason,  and  prom- 
ised him  his  protection  and  favor.  But  three  months  later 
the  Swedes  were  in  Saxony,  and  on  the  twenty-eighth  of 
March,  seventeen  hundred  and  seven,  Patkul  was  delivered 
over  to  Charles.  He  was  accused  of  high  treason,  and  con- 
demned to  be  broken  on  the  wheel  and  beheaded.  The  Tsar 
wrote  a  letter  to  the  different  Powers  complaining  of  this  insult 
to  his  majesty ;  but  Charles  had  the  double  satisfaction  of 
wounding  Peter  and  of  revenging  himself  on  his  former  vassal. 
Pie  well  knew  that  he  had  no  enemy  more  dangerous  than 
Patkul.  His  courage,  his  unbending  will,  his  talents,  his 
thorough  knowledge  of  internal  and  external  affairs,  and  his 
skill  in  statesmanship  made  him  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
men  of  the  century.  It  was  he  who  saw  with  the  greatest 
clearness  the  destiny  of  Russia,  and  his  highest  ambition  was 
to  be  the  leader  of  diplomacy  in  the  growing  State.  That 
part  he  played  with  consummate  ability  as  long  as  he  remained 
in  the  service  of  the  Tsar. 

The  adversary  of  Peter  the  Great  was  an  admirable  knight- 
errant  rather  than  a  sovereign.  The  absolute  power  of  which 
he  became  possessed  at  an  early  age  left  without  counterpoise 
his  fiery  temper  and  obstinate  character,  — his  "  iron  head,"  as 
the  Turks  said  at  Bender.  Voltaire  observes  that  he  carried 
all  his  virtues  to  such  an  excess  that  they  became  as  danger- 
ous as  the  opposite  vices.  His  dominant  virtue  and  vice  was 
a  passion  for  glory.  Glory,  and  glory  alone,  was  to  him  the 
end  of  war.  He  appears  not  to  have  understood  that  it  was 
possible  to  acquire  it  by  practising  the  arts  of  peace.  Up  to 
the  moment  when  the  news  of  the  coalition  of  Poland,  Hen- 


1700-1709.]  PETER  THE    GREAT.  C7 

mark,  and  Russia  revealed  to  him  his  mihtary  vocation,  he 
seemed  the  most  insignificant  of  all  the  European  princes. 
His  conduct  appeared  to  be  regulated,  not  by  the  political 
principles  current  in  the  eighteenth  century,  but  by  some 
strange  and  archaic  point  of  honor.  He  knew  Alexander 
the  Great  only  as  the  romantic  hero  of  Quintus  Curtius,  and 
this  phantom  he  took  for  his  ideal.  He  was  nourished  on  the 
old  Scandinavian  sagas,  and  we  may  truly  say  that  the  soul 
and  spirit  of  the  old  vikings  revived  in  him  :  he  had  their  won- 
derful deeds  forever  before  his  eyes,  and  the  versitied  maxims 
of  the  Scalds  forever  present  to  his  memory.  Charles  the 
Twelfth  was  a  hero  of  the  Edda  set  down  by  mistake  in  a 
matter-of-fact  century.  A  Russian  historian,  M.  Guerrier, 
calls  him  "the  last  of  the  Variagi";  he  was  the  last  of  those 
Scandinavian  adventurers  who  marched  over  the  Russian 
plains  from  Novgorod  to  Kief,  but  to  whom  henceforth  the 
road  to  the  south  remained  forever  shut.  Pitiless  to  others 
as  well  as  to  himself,  we  find  him  undergoing  useless  dangers 
and  fatigues  seeking  adventures  like  a  sea-king  who  had  only 
his  head  to  risk  ;  considering  a  war  as  a  single  combat  be- 
tween two  champions,  which  could  only  end,  if  not  with  the 
death,  at  least  with  the  dethronement,  of  the  vanquished ; 
fighting  not  to  gain  crowns,  but  to  distribute  them  ;  giving 
largesses  to  his  soldiers  as  if  he  had  always  the  treasures  of 
pillage,  the  "  red  gold  of  Fafnir's  heath,"  at  his  disposal ; 
despising  all  the  luxuries  of  hfe,  like  the  Northmen  who 
boasted  of  never  having  slept  beneath  a  roof;  flying  from 
women,  "  whose  silken  hairs,"  says  the  sagas,  "  are  nets  of 
perfidy  " ;  regarding  a  backward  movement  as  dishonor,  and 
considering  prudent  advice  an  evidence  of  weakness ;  readv 
to  face  water,  as  in  the  marshes  of  Lithuania,  or  fire,  as  in 
the  conflagration  of  Bender.  He  had  his  own  guard  of  hal- 
berdiers, as  the  kings  of  heroic  times  had  their  drujina,  as 
Alexander  had  his  companions.  His  conu-ades  also  are  heroes 
of   sagas,  and  legend  has    embellished  their    exploits.     The 


68  HISTOEY   OF   EUSSIA.  [Chap.  II. 

stoiy  is  carrent  in  Sweden  that  Hinstersfelt  carried  off  the 
enemy's  guns  on  his  shouklers,  and  that,  passing  through  a 
vaulted  gateway,  from  which  hung  a  ring,  he  put  his  httle 
finger  through  it  and  pulled  himself  up  by  it,  and  with  him 
the  horse  which  he  pressed  between  his  knees.  "  When  I 
have  nine  of  my  halberdiers  with  me,"  said  Charles,  "  nothing 
can  hinder  me  from  going  where  I  will."  He  was  thus  im- 
pelled to  seek  adventures  in  distant  lands,  and,  like  the  war- 
riors of  old,  to  "  win  the  world  by  the  force  of  his  arm."  He 
sent  officers  even  into  Asia  and  Egypt  to  reconnoitre  and  to 
collect  information. 

Pushkin,  in  his  poem  "Poltava,"  puts  into  the  mouth  of  the 
disappointed  IMazeppa  the  following  remark :  "  I  have  been 
mistaken  about  this  Charles  :  no  doubt  he  is  a  bold  and  auda- 
cious youth  ;  two  or  three  battles  he  can  gain ;  he  can  fall 
suddenly  on  the  enemy  after  supper,  reply  to  a  bomb  with  a 
burst  of  laughter  ;  like  a  Russian  sharpshooter,  he  can  steal 
by  night  into  the  camp  of  the  foe,  overthrow  the  Cossack 
as  he  has  done  to-day,  give  blow  for  blow  and  wound  for 
wound  :  but  it  is  not  for  him  to  cope  with  tlie  giant  autocrat ; 
he  wishes  to  make  Portune  manoeuvre  like  a  regiment  at  the 
sound  of  the  drum.  He  is  blind,  obstinate,  impatient,  and 
thoughtless  and  presumptuous  ;  he  trusts  in  God  knows  what 
star.  The  new  forces  of  his  enemy  he  measures  by  his  past 
success.  The  horn  of  his  strength  is  broken.  I  am  ashamed 
to  have  been  seduced  in  my  old  age  by  a  military  vagabond. 
Like  a  timid  girl,  I  was  dazzled  by  his  boldness  and  the  rapid 
success  of  his  victories."  Plerrmann  says  :  "  Of  the  four  princes 
who  took  the  leading  parts  in  the  Northern  Avar,  Peter  alone 
proved  himself  to  be  the  statesman  who  kept  ever  in  sight  a 
great  and  useful  end.  Augustus  the  Magnificent  and  the 
weak  Prederick  the  Pourth  were  the  slaves  of  the  contempti- 
ble false  god  of  idle  show  and  brutal  pleasure.  The  tem- 
perate, hard-headed  hero,  Charles  the  Twelfth,  in  his  restless 
pursuit  of  a  purposeless  design,  became  a  mere  Don  Quixote." 


1700-1709.]  PETER  THE    GKEAT.  69 

The  two  adversaries  were  to  meet  at  last.  In  January, 
seventeen  hundred  and  eight,  Charles  quitted  Saxony  with 
forty-three  thousand  men,  enriched  Avith  the  spoils  of  the 
country ;  he  left  ten  thousand  of  them  behind  to  support 
Stanislas  on  the  throne,  and  marched  towards  the  Niemen. 
Peter  also  started  from  Moscow  to  join  his  army  at  Grodno. 
There  he  learned  that  Charles  had  crossed  the  frozen  Weichsel, 
or  Vistula,  which  was  guarded  by  jMiihlenfeldt.  But  Mlihlen- 
feldt  deserted  to  the  enemy,  and  the  Tsar  had  scarcely  time 
to  leave  the  city,  together  with  Menshikof,  on  the  evening  of 
the  sixth  of  February,  when  the  Swedes  made  their  appear- 
ance. Charles  led  the  way  into  Grodno  w^itli  but  six  hun- 
dred men,  and  only  the  prodigies  of  valor  which  he  performed 
prevented  his  being  captured  by  the  Russian  rear-guard.  The 
Tsar,  in  pursuance  of  a  system  which  was  again  to  be  followed 
in  eighteen  hundred  and  twelve,  fell  back  on  Russia,  laying 
waste  Lithuania  as  he  went.  The  Swedish  name  was  still  a 
universal  terror.  Besides  the  thirty-three  thousand  men  who 
followed  Charles,  Lewenhaupt  was  to  bring  up  eighteen  thou- 
sand from  Poland.  No  Russian  force  seemed  fit  to  cope  with 
this  the  most  experienced  army  in  Europe.  The  internal 
affairs  of  Russia  were  also  causing  Peter  anxiety ;  it  was  at 
this  decisive  moment  that  the  revolt  of  Bulavin,  in  the  camp 
of  the  Don,  occurred,  and  the  first  agitation  among  the  Cos- 
sacks of  the  Dnieper.  Before  risking  the  safety  of  his  empire, 
within  which  terrible  disorders  were  still  fermenting,  before 
exposing  his  uew  creations  to  the  horrors  of  an  invasion,  Peter 
tried  to  negotiate  with  his  enemy ;  he  offered  to  be  content 
with  a  suigle  port  on  the  Baltic.  "  I  will  treat  with  the  Tsar 
in  Moscow,"  was  Charles's  answer.  But  Peter  said,  "  My 
brother  Charles  is  going  to  be  Alexander,  but  in  me  he  will 
not  find  Darius." 

Three  routes  now  lay  open  for  Charles  to  invade  Russia,  — 
through  Novgorod,  through  Smolensk,  or  through  the  Ukraina. 
He  delayed  thirteen  weeks  in  the  vicinity  of  Minsk,  uncertain 


70  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  IL 

wliicli  way  to  turn.  Had  he  by  a  bold  stroke  captured  the 
city  of  Pskof,  wliich  he  might  easily  liave  done,  neither  the 
skill  nor  the  wisdom  nor  the  power  of  the  Tsar  could  have 
prevented  him  from  invading  Russia.  He  could  have  brought 
Peter  to  submit  to  the  most  humiliating  treaty. 

From  the  Niemen,  across  the  forest  of  jMinsk,  where  the 
Swedes  were  obliged  to  cut  a  passage  with  their  axes,  Charles 
the  Twelfth  reached  the  Berezina,  which  he  crossed  at  the 
head  of  a  body  of  three  thousand  men.  At  Golovtchin,  on 
the  fifteenth  of  July,  he  came  up  with  twenty  thousand  Rus- 
sians, whose  steadiness  should  have  caused  him  to  consider, 
for  they  yielded  only  at  the  seventh  charge  of  the  King.  He 
reached  the  Dnieper  at  Mohilef,  and  followed  its  course  up 
as  far  as  Mstislaf.  At  Dobroe,  south  of  Smolensk,  on  the 
twenty-ninth  of  August,  he  attacked  a  body  of  ten  thousand 
Russians  and  six  thousand  Kalmuicki.  This  time  he  had  a 
horse  killed  under  him,  two  aides-de-camp  killed  at  his  side, 
and,  finding  himself  alone  with  five  men,  slew  twelve  of  the 
enemy  with  his  own  hand,  and  escaped  only  by  a  miracle. 
Russia  was  not  going  to  allow  itself  to  be  conquered  so  easily. 
He  was  now  three  hundred  miles  from  the  Russian  capital, 
on  the  road  to  Moscow,  which  Na[)oleon  was  afterwards  to 
take.  It  was  already  the  end  of  September;  winter  was 
coming  on,  and  showed  signs  of  being  severe ;  provisions 
were  scarce,  and  Charles  was  advised  to  retreat  from  Mstislaf 
to  Mohilef,  and  there  await  Lewenhaupt,  who  would  bring  up 
between  ten  and  twenty  thousand  men  and  plenty  of  food. 
Charles,  however,  allowed  himself  to  be  tempted  by  the  ofi'ers 
of  the  aged  Mazeppa,  who  promised  hiui  a  reinforcement  of 
thirty  thousand  Cossacks,  and  by  the  hopes  of  abundance  in 
the  fertile  plains  of  the  south.  Besides,  as  he  confessed  to 
Gyllenkruk,  who  was  horrified  by  this  announcement,  he  had 
no  plan.  So  he  turned  towards  the  Ukraina,  followed  by 
Sheremetief.  Then  the  Tsar  and  his  generals  hung  like 
wolves  on  the  flank  of  Lewenhaupt,  who  found  himself  iso- 


1700-1709.]  PETER  THE    GREAT.  71 

lated  and  without  support  on  the  plains  of  the  Dnieper.  On 
the  ninth  of  October,  at  Liesna,  by  the  Sozha,  they  fouglit  a 
battle  which  raged  for  three  days,  and  where,  this  time,  the 
numbers  were  equal.  The  Swedish  general  saved  only  six 
thousand  seven  hundred  men,  and  was  forced  to  spike  his 
cannon  and  burn  a  thousand  wagon-loads  of  provisions,  besides 
which  six  thousand  were  captured  by  the  Russians.  All  the 
convoy,  which  was  the  sole  hope  of  the  royal  army,  was 
destroyed.  Lewenhaupt,  however,  by  a  masterly  piece  of 
manoeuvring  brought  to  Charles  the  fragments  that  were  left 
after  the  disaster.  Peter,  on  the  thirteenth  of  October,  with- 
drew to  Smolensk,  which  he  entered  amid  the  thunder  of 
artillery,  displaying  his  prisoners  and  the  cannon  and  banners 
which  had  been  taken.  His  joy  was  redoubled  when  a  few 
days  later  he  learned  from  his  cousin.  Admiral  Apraxin,  that 
the  Swedish  attempt  upon  Ingria  had  failed,  as  well  as  the 
meditated  destruction  of  Saint  Petersburg  and  Cronstadt. 

By  this  time  winter  had  come,  —  the  terrible  winter  of 
seventeen  hundred  and  nine.  In  the  forced  marches  which  the 
King  of  Sweden  had  the  imprudence  to  impose  on  his  army, 
the  men,  who  lacked  winter  clothing,  and  the  starving  horses 
perished  by  thousands ;  the  guns  were  thrown  into  the  river 
for  want  of  beasts  to  transport  them.  The  very  crows  fell 
dead  from  the  cold,  and  the  doctors  were  employed  in  ampu- 
tating frost-bitten  fingers  and  toes.  Charles  continued  his 
march,  ascertained  the  distance  which  separated  him  from 
Asia,  and  consoled  his  half-naked  soldiers  with  the  assurance 
that  he  would  conduct  them  so  far  that  they  could  receive 
news  of  Sweden  only  three  times  a  year.  A  soldier  showed 
him  the  horrible  mouldy  bread  on  which  the  army  was  fed. 
Charles  took  it,  tasted  it,  and  observed  quietly,  "  It  is  not 
good,  but  it  may  be  eaten." 

The  arrival  of  spring  did  not  put  an  end  to  the  sufferings 
of  the  army.  Prince  Menshikof  sacked  Baturin,  the  capital 
of  the  fugitive  hetman,  and  razed  the  fort  of  the  Zaporoshtsui, 


72  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  II. 

in  May,  seventeen  hundred  and  nine.  Charles  reached  the 
walls  of  Poltava,  and  halted  there  to  wait  for  the  Turks  and 
the  Poles  of  Leshtchinski,  who  were  never  to  arrive.  AVhile 
avi^aiting  them  he  determined  to  attack  the  town  "  for  a  diver- 
sion." It  was  in  vain  that  the  uselessness  of  the  enterprise 
and  the  impossibihty  of  success  were  represented  to  him. 
What  was  the  good  of  wasting  powder  and  the  munitions  of 
war,  which  had  now  become  rare  in  the  camp  ?  "  Yes,"  re- 
plied the  Iron-bead  to  Gyllenkruk,  "  we  are  obliged  to  do 
extraordinary  things  to  gain  honor  and  glory  "  ;  and  to  Piper, 
"  Au  angel  would  have  to  descend  from  heaven  with  orders 
for  me  to  go  before  I  stirred  from  this  place."  When  had 
his  favorite  heroes  of  the  Eddas  ever  been  seen  to  retreat? 
He  made  Gutman,  his  servant,  recite  the  saga  of  Rolf  Ericseu, 
who  "  vanquished  the  Russian  sorcerer  in  the  isle  of  Retusari, 
and  conquered  all  Russia  and  Denmark,  so  that  his  name  is 
honored  and  glorified  throughout  the  North."  Menshikof 
then  came  up,  and  showed  that  he  had  profited  by  the  lessons 
of  the  Swedes  by  making  a  feint  which  enabled  him  to  throw 
some  troops  into  Poltava. 

The  Tsar  arrived  on  the  fourth  (or,  by  modern  reckoning, 
the  fifteenth)  of  June,  seventeen  hundred  and  nine,  with  sixty 
thousand  men,  whom  he  protected  by  an  intrenchment  raised 
durino;  a  single  nis-ht.  Charles's  arniv  was  now  reduced  to 
twenty-nine  thousand  men,  who  lacked  everything,  suffered  as 
much  from  the  extreme  heat  as  they  had  formerly  done  from 
the  extreme  cold,  and  were  exhausted  by  suffering  and  priva- 
tions. He  had  only  four  field-pieces  against  the  seventy-two 
guns  of  the  Tsar.  In  one  of  his  nightly  sallies,  when  he  was 
trying  to  harass  the  enemy's  vanguard,  Charles  received  a 
wound  in  his  heel  which  necessitated  a  cruel  operation,  and  on 
the  day  of  the  famous  battle,  twenty-seventh  of  June  (or  eighth 
of  July),  seventeen  hundred  and  nine,  he  had  to  be  carried  in 
a  litter.  The  generals  on  whom  the  responsibility  of  com- 
mand fell  could  not  agree ;  he  himself  thwarted  the  disposi- 
tions of  Rhenskold,  who  was  nominated  general-in-chief. 


1700-1709.]  PETER  THE   GREAT.  73 

Peter  Lad  conficled  the  centre  to  Sheremetief,  the  riffht  to 
Reiine,  the  left  to  Menshikof,  and  the  artillery  to  Bruce.  He 
then  harangued  his  troops.  "  The  moment  is  come,"  he  said  ; 
"  the  fate  of  our  country  is  to  be  decided.  You  must  not 
think,  '  It  is  for  Peter  we  fight ' ;  no,  it  is  for  the  empire  con- 
fided to  Peter,  it  is  for  the  country,  it  is  for  our  orthodox  faith, 
for  the  Church  of  God.  As  for  Peter,  know  that  he  is  ready 
to  sacrifice  his  life  foi  a  prosperous  and  glorious  future  for 
Russia." 

The  Swedes  took  the  offensive.  "  All  those  who  have 
served  in  the  Swedish  army,"  says  Voltaire,  "  know  that  it 
was  impossible  to  resist  their  first  shock."  They  saw  in  vic- 
tory an  end  of  their  sufFeriugs,  and  fought  like  the  wild  Ber- 
sarkers  of  the  legends.  They  charged  with  fury  the  cavalry 
placed  at  the  right  of  the  Russians,  Avounded  Renne,  who 
had  to  yield  his  command  to  Bauer,  and  took  two  redoubts. 
Peter,  in  trying  to  rally  his  cavalry,  received  a  ball  in  his  hat. 
Menshikof  had  three  horses  killed  under  him. 

Unluckily  for  Charles,  the  corps  of  Kreutz,  which  ought  to 
have  made  a  detour  and  fallen  on  the  enemy's  flank,  was  lost, 
and  never  appeared.  The  superior  artillery  of  the  Russians 
arrested  the  charge  of  the  Swedes.  Menshikof  marched 
boldly  on  their  rear,  and  thus  separated  the  body  of  the  army 
from  the  camp  under  Poltava,  which  he  finally  reached.  The 
Russian  fire  on  the  front  of  the  Swedes  was  so  violent  that  the 
horses  harnessed  to  Charles's  fitter  were  killed ;  his  halber- 
diers then  took  it  in  turns  to  carry  him,  but  twenty-one  out  of 
the  twenty-four  were  left  where  they  fell.  The  Russian  cav- 
alry rallied,  and  the  Russian  infantry,  which  was  now  put  in 
motion,  broke  the  Swedish  line.  Attacked  in  front  by  Peter 
and  in  the  rear  by  Menshikof,  the  Swedes  were  speedily 
thrown  into  disorder.  They  fled,  and  Charles  was  placed  on 
horseback  by  his  guards,  and  obliged  to  go  with  the  stream. 
He  hardly  escaped  being  taken.  Accompanied  by  ]\Iazeppa 
and  by  the  Pole  Poniatovski,  he  arrived  after  two  days'  flight 


74  HISTORY   OP   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  II. 

at  the  banks  of  the  celebrated  Borjsthenes,  the  Dnieper,  clown 
which  in  the  tenth  centnry  so  many  Scandinavian  fleets  had 
sailed.  He  crossed  the  Dnieper  in  a  little  boat  with  Mazeppa, 
and  continned  his  ronte  to  Otchakof.  It  was  thus  that  "  the 
last  of  the  Variagi  and  the  last  of  the  free  Cossacks  entered  the 
land  of  the  Sultan  as  fugitives."  The  Swedes  had  lost  about 
ten  thousand  men,  —  three  thousand  were  taken  on  the  field 
of  battle ;  the  bulk  of  the  army,  which  had  continued,  under 
Lewenhaupt,  its  march  to  the  Dnieper,  had  to  pause  on  its 
banks.  Menshikof,  sent  there  hastily  by  the  Tsar,  obliged 
sixteen  thousand  more  Swedes  to  lay  down  their  arms.  This 
was  called  the  Capitulation  of  Perevolotchna.  Of  the  mag- 
nificent army  wdiich  at  Leipsic  had  made  all  Europe  tremble, 
not  a  battalion  escaped. 

The  evening  after  the  battle  the  Tsar  received  in  his  tent 
Rhenskold,  Prince  Maximilian  Emanuel  von  Wiirtemberg, 
Stackelberg,  Hamilton,  Kruse,  —  those  Swedish  generals 
whose  names  had  been  cited  among  the  first  captains  of  the 
age.  He  treated  these  glorious  prisoners  courteously,  and 
invited  the  minister,  Graf  Piper,  and  the  generals  to  dinner. 
He  praised  Rhenskold's  bravery,  and  even  gave  him  his  own 
sword  as  a  mark  of  personal  esteem.  When  a  Russian  officer 
spoke  disrespectfully  of  Charles,  the  Tsar  chided  him  with  the 
words  :  "  Am  I  too  not  a  king  ?  And  who  Avas  to  assure  me 
that  Charles's  fate  would  not  be  mine?"  Then  he  drank  to 
the  health  of  his  master  in  the  art  of  war.  The  Russian  gen- 
erals were  rewarded  with  landed  possessions  and  ribbons  of 
the  various  orders ;  the  lower  officers,  with  gold  and  silver 
badges.  Menshikof  became  second  field-marshal,  and  Peter 
himself  accepted  the  grades  of  lieutenant-general  and  vice- 
admiral;  the  Russian  churches  resounded  Avith  songs  of  tri- 
umph ;  the  Tsar  was  exalted  in  eloquent  sermons ;  and 
Knrbatof  wrote  to  Kim  :  "  Rejoice,  because,  obedient  to  the 
AVord  of  God,  thou  hast  expos'ed  thy  life  for  thy  servants  ; 
rejoice,  because  thou  hast  forged  thine  array  by  thy  courage. 


-.za./7jy:.^-/iGi'!A' 


TRIUMPHAL    ARCH    OF   NARVA. 


1700-1709.]  PETER  THE    GREAT.  75 

as  men  heat  gold  in  a  furnace ;  rejoice,  because  tliou  mayest 
hope  for  the  reaHzation  of  thy  dearest  wish,  —  the  domination 
of  the  sea  of  the  Variagi."  Peter  after  Poltava,  like  Charles 
after  Narva,  tasted  in  his  turn  the  sweets  of  glory.  But  the 
success  of  Poltava  differed  from  the  success  of  Narva.  Narva 
had  been  only  a  victory  ;  Poltava  marks  a  new  era  in  univer- 
sal history.  Sweden,  which  under  Gustavus  Adolphus,  and 
again  under  Charles  the  Eleventh,  had  played  in  Europe  the 
part  of  a  great  Power,  which  had  even  obtained  an  importance 
out  of  all  proportion  to  its  actual  resources,  was  suddenly 
relegated  to  the  third  rank  among  States.  The  place  it  had 
left  vacant  in  the  North  was  taken  by  a  nation  which  had  at 
its  disposal  far  larger  resources,  besides  a  greater  power  of 
expansion.  The  shores  of  the  Baltic  were  to  pass  into  its 
hands.  Already  Russia  declared  itself,  not.  oidy  a  Power  of 
the  North,  but  a  Power  of  Europe.  Muscovy,  which  had  been 
formerly  held  in  check  by  little  Sweden,  by  anarchic  Poland, 
by  decrepit  Turkey,  or  even  by  the  Khan  of  the  Tatars,  was 
destined  to  become  formidable  to  France,  to  England,  and  to 
the  house  of  Austria.  With  Russia,  the  Slav  race,  so  long 
humiliated,  made  a  triumphal  entry  into  the  stage  of  the 
world.  Finally,  Poltava  was  not  only  a  victory,  it  was  the 
proof  of  the  regeneration  of  Russia ;  it  justified  the  Tsar,  his 
foreign  auxiliaries,  his  regular  army  ;  it  left  his  hands  free 
to  reform,  gave  to  the  empire  a  new  capital,  and  promised  to 
Europe  a  new  civilized  people.  "  Now,"  he  wrote  to  Apraxin 
from  the  field  of  battle,  "  the  fate  of  Phaethon  has  come  upon 
our  adversary,  and  the  first  stone  for  the  foundation  of  Saint 
Petersburg  is  laid  by  the  help  of  God." 


CHAPTER  III. 

PETER  THE  GREAT  :  THE  REFORMS. 

General  Character  of  the  Reforms  :  the  Collaborators  of  Peter 
THE  Great.  —  Social  Reforms:  the  Tchin  ;  Emancipation  of  Wo- 
men.—  Administrative,  Military,  and  Ecclesiasitcal Reforms. — 
Economic  Reforms:  Manufactures.  —  Practical  Character  of 
THE  Schools  founded  by  Peter.  —  Foundation  of  Saint  Peters- 
burg (1703). 


GENERAL  CHARACTER  OF  THE  REFORMS:  THE  COL- 
LABORATORS OF  PETER  THE  GREAT. 

THE  way  for  the  reforms  of  Peter  the  Great  had  been 
made  smooth  by  those  of  Alexis,  and  by  all  the  move- 
ment of  the  seventeenth  century.  Under  the  Ivans,  under 
Boris,  under  the  early  Romanofs,  Russia  had  been  little  by 
little  thrown  open  to  strangers.  It  by  no  means  followed, 
however,  that  the  whole  country  was  disposed  to  support 
Peter  the  Great  in  his  innovations.  Opposed  to  him  were 
those  who  had  refused  to  accept  the  reforms  of  Nikon,  and 
many  who,  while  accepting  them,  had  no  idea  of  going 
further.  Those  who  belonged  to  the  party  of  the  dissenters, 
and  certain  members  of  the  State  Church,  were  his  enemies. 
The  Russian  people  were  more  averse  to  innovation  than  any 
in  Europe ;  as  their  proverb  says,  "  Novelty  brings  calam- 
ity " ;  the  nobles  also  were  hostile  to  everything  that  could 
contribute  to  autocratic  centralization. 

Peter  the  Great  found,  then,  a  steady  resistance  among  the 
majority  of  the  nation  ;  to  conquer  it,  where  persuasion  and 
his  own  example  did  not  suffice  he  employed  the  energy  of 
his  semi-barbarous  character,  and  the  terrible  resources   of 


1700-1709.]     PETER  THE    GREAT:   THE   REFORMS.  77 

absolute  power.  By  main  force  he  dragged  the  nation  in  the 
path  of  progress ;  at  every  page  of  his  reforming  edicts  we 
find  the  knout  and  the  penah.y  of  death. 

These  innovations  effected  by  the  prince  were  not  intended 
to  prejudice  his  own  authority  j  on  the  contrary,  they  had,  we 
may  say,  for  their  sole  end  the  transformation  of  a  patriarchal 
into  a  modern  despotism.  The  force  of  the  government  Avas 
to  be  increased  without  any  essential  change  in  its  character. 
The  Tsar  remained  as  much  an  autocrat  as  Ivan  the  Terrible, 
but  his  authority  was  to  be  exercised  by  means  of  more  per- 
fect instruments,  and  by  agents  subjected  to  the  discipline 
and  rules  of  the  West. 

The  mass  of  the  people  still  remained  serfs  and  attached 
to  the  soil ;  twenty  milhons  of  human  beings  were  the  prop- 
erty of  the  territorial  oligarchy ;  but,  in  spite  of  this  fact,  the 
Russian  nation  was  to  be  furnished  with  the  means  necessary 
to  enter  into  regular  communications  with  the  free  people  of 
Europe.  Russia  was  to  give  the  idea  of  a  state  centralized 
and  civilized  like  the  Prance  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  yet  the 
patriarchal  and  Asiatic  principle,  which,  confounding  paternal 
and  territorial  authority  with  political  rule,  presided  over  the 
relations  of  the  father  with  his  children,  of  the  Tsar  with  his 
subjects,  of  the  proprietor  with  his  slaves,  of  the  superior  with 
his  inferiors,  was  still  unimpaired.  On  the  basis  of  a  social 
organization,  which  seemed 'to  date  from  the  eleventh  century, 
were  to  be  constructed  a  system  of  diplomacy,  a  regular  army, 
a  complete  order  of  administrative  officers,  together  with 
schools  and  academies,  and  the  trade  and  manufactures  of  a 
luxurious  civilization. 

A  fourth  characteristic  of  the  reforms  of  Peter  the  Great 
was  that,  in  order  to  make  a  thorough  introduction  of  Euro- 
pean civilization  into  Russia,  he  was  obliged  to  borrow  every- 
thing abroad,  without  always  having  the  time  to  choose  the 
institutions  best  suited  to  his  purpose.  What  is  meant  by 
civilization  was  then,  and  is  still,  the  civilization  of  the  West; 


78  HISTORY   OF   EUSSIA.  [Chap.  III. 

tlierefore  Peter  surrounded  himself  with  Dntchmen,  English- 
men, Scotchmen,  Swiss,  and  Germans.  For  tlie  same  reason 
he  indiscriminately  imported  manufactures,  trades,  and  arti- 
sans ;  he  had  Western  books  translated,  and  sprinkled  his 
administrative  terminology  with  words  borrowed  from  Swe- 
den or  Germany.  That  he  might  introduce  Western  ideas, 
he  made  himself  a  Dutchman  and  a  German,  forbade  his  sub- 
jects to  wear  the  long  garments  peculiar  to  Asia,  and  obliged 
them  to  adopt  the  European  costume,  including  the  short 
trousers,  the  cocked  hat,  and  the  buckled  shoes. 

There  was  nothing  servile,  however,  in  this  imitation ;  it 
was  the  method  of  a  man  of  genius,  who  wished  to  outstrip 
time  and  hasten  reforms  by  a  hundred  years.  He  intended 
that  the  Russians  should  be  the  pupils  and  not  the  subjects 
of  the  Germans ;  and  as  under  his  German  dress  he  remained 
a  Russian  patriot,  he  reserved  the  first  posts  in  the  army  and 
state  for  the  natives.  To  be  sure,  we  may  cite  among  his 
fellow-workers  his  admiral,  the  Genevese  Lefort,  wdio  until 
his  early  death,  in  March,  sixteen  hundred  and  ninety-nine, 
by  his  genial  manners  and  great  fund  of  experience  gathered 
in  all  parts  of  Europe,  had  the  greatest  influence  upon  him ; 
the  Scotch  Gordon,  Avhom  he  made  general ;  Bruce,  a  Scotch- 
man born  in  W^estphaHa,  who  organized  the  artillery,  directed 
the  diplomacy,  and  after  the  pubhcation  of  the  almanac,  in 
seventeen  hundred,  by  Avhich  the  beginning  of  the  year  was 
changed  from  September  to  January,  passed  with  the  people 
for  a  sorcerer  and  a  magician,  w^ho  could  alter  the  course 
of  the  sun  ;  Ostermann,  son  of  a  pastor  in  the  county  of  La 
Marck,  a  skilful  negotiator,  of  whom  Peter  said  that  he  never 
committed  faults  in  diplomacy ;  and  a  native  of  the  county 
of  Oldenburg,  jMiinnich,  a  good  engineer,  who  constructed  for 
Peter  the  canal  of  the  Ladoga,  and  afterwards  became  field- 
marshal.  But  among  the  chosen  companions  of  Peter  the 
Great,  in  the  nest  of  "  Peter's  eaglets,"  as  Pushkin  calls  them, 
we  find  many  Russians,  and  in  the  highest  post  among  these 


JL682-1725.]     PETER  THE   GREAT:   THE    REFORMS.  79 

men  Alexander  Mensliikof,  a  "  new  man,"  who  rose  from  tlie 
position  of  a  pastry-cook's  boy  to  become  prince,  field-niarsliul, 
admiral,  and  conqueror,  but  whose  probity  .did  not  stand  as 
high  as  his  talents.  Another  was  Boris  Sheremetief,  a  great 
noble,  whose  name  and  exploits  are  still  preserved  in  the 
songs  of  the  people,  who  travelled  in  the  West  before  Peter, 
and  came  back  to  Russia  in  German  clothes,  a  man  as  honest 
as  he  was  brave,  first  in  date  of  the  Russian  marshals.  There 
were  also  Dmitri  Mikha'ilovitch,  head  of  the  princely  family 
of  Galitsuin,  who  devoted  himself  to  the  reformer,  though 
detesting  "  new  men  " ;  his  brother,  Mikhail  Galitsuin,  who 
when  he  became  field-marshal  continued  to  show  to  his  elder 
brother  an  old-fashioned  deference,  and  refused  to  sit  at  the 
same  table  with  him;  lakof  Dolgoruki,  who  could  brave  the 
wrath  of  Peter  and  force  him  to  hear  the  truth  ;  Golovin,  high- 
admiral  and  diplomatist ;  Apraxin,  admiral,  conqueror  on  the 
Swedish  seas ;  the  diplomatist  Golovkin,  grand  chancellor ; 
Shafirof,  vice-chancellor  of  the  empire ;  Gregory  and  Vasili 
Dolgoruki ;  Andrei  Matveef ;  the  Kurakins,  ambassadors,  father 
and  son,  to  the  courts  of  the  West.  Not  to  be  forgotten  are 
the  intelligent  and  (piick-tempered  laguzhinski,  afterwards 
procurator-general  of  the  senate ;  Tolstoi,  an  accomplice  of 
Sophia,  pardoned  on  account  of  his  high  intelligence,  who  was 
an  excellent  negotiator  and  administrator  of  justice ;  Romo- 
danovski,  the  cruel  director  of  the  State  inquisition  ;  Kurbatof, 
the  financier  of  the  new  regime ;  besides  three  Little  Russians 
who  had  been  brilliant  pupils  of  the  Academy  of  Kief,  — ■  Saint 
Dmitri,  metropolitan  of  Rostof,  who  wrote  the  Hves  of  saints, 
and  a  treatise  against  heresy ;  Stephan  lavorski,  metropolitan 
of  Riazan,  a  man  of  great  ability,  full  of  zeal  for  Church  and 
State ;  and  his  enemy,  Feofan  Prokopovitch,  chief  ecclesiastic 
of  Novgorod,  a  distinguished  preacher  and  writer,  —  to  whom 
we  must  add  the  bishop  Feofilakt  Lopatinski.  Such  were 
the  Russian  men  of  the  vremia  of  Peter  the  Great. 


80  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  HI. 


SOCIAL  REFORMS :   THE   "  TCHIN  "  ;   EMANCIPATION 
OF  WOMEN. 

The  most  numerous  class  in  Russia  was  the  rural  popula- 
tion, on  which  the  reform  inade  the  State  to  press  with  a  daily 
increasing  weight,  and  which  paid  by  its  enforced  labor  for 
the  cost  of  the  change.     It  was  subdivided  into  the  peasants, 
who  had  sprung  from  the  settlers  in  the  south  of  Russia,  with 
whom   there  had  become  mixed  many  of  the   impoverished 
lower  nobility ;  into  the  ftirmers  on  the  mfdaijer  system,  who 
cultivated  the  land  of  the  nobles  and  handed  over  to  them 
half  the  products,  but  who  had  retained  their  personal  liberty ; 
into  peasants  of  the  crown,  of  the  monasteries  and  of  proprie- 
tors, who  were  attached  to  the  soil.     The  edicts  of  Peter  con- 
founded all  these  classes,  and  subjected  all  the  cultivators  to 
a  capitation  tax  and  a  fixed  residence :  this  was  equivalent  to 
serfage.     The  reasons  which  had  caused  Godunof  to  legalize 
their  attachment  to  the  soil  still  subsisted  in  all  their  original 
force,  and  were  likely  to  cause  even  more  severe  legislation. 
The  tax  on  the  fires  was  changed  into  a  tax  upon  individuals, 
and  the  proprietors,  by  a  considerable  increase  of  their  seigno- 
rial  authority,  were  intrusted  with  the  collection  of  it.     A  pro- 
prietor who  concealed  a  single  soul  in  order  to  avoid  paying 
the  tax  was  fined  a  ruble ;  and  the  crime  of  concealing  the 
tenth   part  of   the    population  of  a  village  was  punished   by 
the  galleys.     Peter  the    Great    merely  promulgated  an  edict 
which  had  for  an  object  the  regnlation  of  the  sale  of  slaves. 
"  If  the  sale  cannot  be  abolished  completely,  slaves  must  be 
sold    by  families  without    separating    husbands   from   wives, 
parents  from  children,  and  no  longer  like  cattle,  a  thing  un- 
heard of  in  the  whole  world."     This  act,  at  least  in  its  philan- 
thropic clauses,  never  received  any  sanction.     Anna  Ivanovna 
later  legalized  this  shameful  abuse  by  collecting  her  dues  on 
the  sale  of  slaves. 

The  inhabitants  of  the  towns  were  divided  into  three  cate- 


1682-1723.]     PETER  THE   GREAT:   THE   REFORMS.  81 

gories.  To  the  first  belonged  bankers,  manufacturers,  rich 
traders,  physicians,  chemists,  capitahsts,  merchants,  jewellers, 
workers  in  metal,  and  artists ;  to  the  second,  small  traders 
and  masters  of  crafts ;  to  the  third,  the  lowest  class  of  jour- 
nej'men  and  artisans.  The  first  two  of  these  divisions  took 
the  name  of  first  and  second  guilds,  chose  their  starosta  or 
mayor  and  his  assistant,  and  were  invested  w^ith  certain  privi- 
leges. 

Foreigners  obtained  the  right  of  freely  engaging  in  trade 
or  commerce,  of  acquiring  real  property,  of  intermarrying  with 
Russians,  of  entering  the  service  of  the  State,  of  practising 
their  respective  modes  of  worship,  and  of  leaving  the  empire 
at  will,  on  condition  of  giving  up  the  tenth  of  their  goods. 

The  Russian  nobility  assumed  the  character  of  a  nobility 
based  on  service.  In  the  reign  of  Feodor  Alexievitch  an 
important  reform  had  already  been  efiected.  Until  that  time 
the  nobles  had  preserved  with  scrupulous  exactness  the  books 
which  contained  their  pedigree,  and  the  posts  and  offices 
which  their  ancestors  had  held.  The  consequence  was  that 
nobles  were  unwilling  to  accept  any  position  in  govermnent 
employ  subordinate  to  a  person  any  of  whose  ancestors  had 
ever  stood  in  a  position  inferior  to  his  own.  Questions  of 
precedence  had  become  so  complicated  that  Feodor,  by  the 
advice  of  Prince  Vasili  Galitsuin,  determined  to  put  an  end 
to  such  quarrels.  Accordingly  he  called  in  the  service-rolls 
of  all  the  noble  families,  with  the  pretended  object  of  correct- 
ing certain  errors  that  had  been  discovered  in  them.  Then 
he  made  an  assembly  of  the  great  men  of  the  empire,  and  the 
Patriarch  delivered  an  address,  in  which  he  attacked  the  cus- 
tom of  consulting  prerogatives.  The  nobles  seemed  to  assent, 
and  Feodor  immediately  had  the  titles  burnt.  The  Patriarch 
cursed  those  who  should  dare  to  rebel,  and  the  assembly  rati- 
fied the  proceeding.  Feodor  had  new  books  of  nobility  made 
out,  which  preserved  the  record  of  the  ancestry  and  kinship 
of  the   families.     But  now,   under   Peter  the   Great,  the  two 

VOL.    II.  6 


82  HISTORY  OF  RUSSIA.  [Chap.  HI. 

ideas  of  nobility  and  service  of  the  Tsar  became  correlative. 
By  an  iikas  of  seventeen  hundred  and  twenty-two  the  depart- 
ment of  Heraldry  had  the  supervision  of  the  nobility  and  the 
books  of  pedigree,  which  were  divided  into  two  classes,  one  for 
the  old  nobility,  the  other  for  those  who  had  gained  rank  by 
service.  Every  noble  was  obliged  to  serve,  and  whoever,  Rus- 
sian or  foreigner,  entered  the  service  of  the  State  became  a 
gentleman.  Peter  the  Great  was  as  inexorable  as  Louvois  in 
exacting  service  from  the  aristocracy  :  every  individual  with 
a  title  was  at  the  disposal  of  the  government  till  his  death. 
Thus  was  the  distinction  finally  effaced  between  the  tv/o  kinds 
of  lands  possessed  by  the  nobles,  —  the  fiefs,  held  from  the 
crown,  and  the  freeholds  or  allods;  both  were  henceforward  held 
only  as  fiefs  of  the  Tsar,  on  condition  of  military  service.  Up 
to  this  time  the  civil,  military,  naval,  and  ecclesiastical  hierar- 
chies had  no  connnon  standard.  Peter  established  in  each 
hierarchy  corresponding  grades,  confounded  hereditary  nobility 
and  the  nobility  of  service,  and  distributed  the  ofiicers  of  the 
State  among  the  fourteen  degrees  of  the  Tchin,  or  Order  of 
Rank.  These  extended,  in  the  civil  order,  from  the  registrar 
of  the  college  to  the  chancellor  of  the  empire  ;  in  the  military 
order,  from  the  cornet  or  ensign  to  the  field-marshal ;  in  the 
fleet,  from  the  midshipman  to  the  high  admiral ;  in  the  Court, 
from  the  tafeldecker  to  the  grand  chamberlain  ;  in  the  Church, 
from  the  deacon  to  the  metropolitan. 

Peter,  desirous  of  imitating  the  English  precedent  of  primo- 
geniture, borrowed  a  custom  which  was  entirely  at  variance 
with  the  Russian  laws,  which  insisted  on  equality  in  the  divis- 
ion of  property.  He  passed  a  decree  in  accordance  with 
which  the  property  passed  to  the  heir  together  with  the  title. 
In  virtue  of  this  new  law  the  land  of  a  noble  belonged  exclu- 
sively to  the  eldest,  or  to  the  son  nominated  heir  by  his 
father.  Peter  saw  in  this  practice,  which  Avas  destined  to 
survive  him  but  a  short  time,  the  following  advantages  :  the 
noble  families  could  no  longer  ruin  and  impoverish  themselves 


16S2-1725.]     PETER  THE    GEEAT :   THE   REFORMS.  S3 

b}^  repeated  partitions  of  the  property  ;  tlie  peasants  would  be 
liappier  under  the  rule  of  one  rich  proprietor  than  under  that 
of  his  needy  co-heirs ;  the  younger  branches,  no  longer  reck- 
oning on  the  paternal  estate,  would  be  obliged  to  seek  tlieir 
livelihood  in  commerce  or  in  the  service  of  the  State,  for  he  felt 
that  "  idleness  was  the  mother  of  all  the  vices."  The  younger 
members  of  the  nobility  were,  besides,  to  be  admitted  into  the 
service  only  under  certain  conditions  of  elementary  or  special 
instruction  and  technical  preparation.  Even  marriage  was 
forbidden  to  an  uneducated  gentleman.  The  destruction  of 
the  barrier  of  caste  was  finished  by  the  foundation  of  the 
orders  of  Saint  Andrew  and  Saint  Catherine,  the  latter  of 
which  was  instituted  on  Catherine's  birthday,  twenty-fifth  of 
November  (old  style),  seventeen  hundred  and  fourteen,  as  a 
memorial  of  the  battle  with  the  Turks  at  the  Pruth,  and  Cath- 
erine's bravery.  * 

The  seclusion  of  women  was  an  Asiatic  custom  with  which 
Peter  waged  fierce  war.  He  was  determined  to  abolish  the 
terem  locked  "  with  twenty-seven  bolts,"  the  veil  over  the 
face,  and  litters  with  closed  curtains.  Six  weeks  before  everv 
marriage  the  betrothal  was  to  take  place,  and  from  that 
moment  the  bridal  pair  might  freely  see  each  other,  and 
might  even  break  off  the  engagement  if  they  were  not  satis- 
fied on  further  acquaintance.  Pathers  and  guardians  had  to 
take  an  oath  that  they  would  not  marry  young  people  against 
their  will ;  and  masters,  that  they  would  not  force  the  consent 
of  their  slaves.  Midwives  Avere  forbidden  to  put  to  death 
misshapen  infants.  Peter  the  Great  took  wives  and  daugh- 
ters from  their  domestic  cloisters,  and  brought  them  into  the 
life  of  European  salons.  He  instituted  assemblies,  free  meet- 
ings which  might  take  place  in  any  house,  to  which  all  per- 
sons of  respectability  might  go  without  invitation,  where  men 
and  women  appeared  in  European  dress,  where  they  partook 
together  of  light  refreshments,  danced  Polish  or  German 
dances,   and   where  Erench  or  Swedish  prisoners  served  as 


84  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  III. 

models  in  manners.  The  assemblies  of  Peter  the  Great  were 
at  first  only  a  parody  of  those  of  Versailles.  Bergholtz,  a 
German  who  came  in  the  train  of  the  Duke  of  Holstein  in 
seventeen  hundred  and  twenty-one,  complains  that  men  allowed 
themselves  to  smoke  in  the  presence  of  the  ladies ;  that  the 
ladies  sat  apart,  embarrassed  in  their  unwonted  attire,  silently 
watching  each  other ;  that  the  nobles  were  often  carried  away 
in  a  state  of  drunkenness  by  their  drunken  lackeys.  Did  not 
Peter  himself  institute  as  a  punishment  for  any  breach  of 
good  behavior  the  emptying  of  tlie  "  great  eagle,"  a  huge 
goblet  filled  with  brandy  ?  To  amuse  the  new  society  and 
give  life  to  his  capital,  he  instituted  masquerades,  cavalcades 
of  disguised  lords  and  ladies,  the  feast  of  fools,  the  Great  Con- 
clave, presided  over  by  the  "  Prince-pope,"  his  former  tutor, 
the  aged  Zotof,  who  was  dressed  in  crimson  velvet  trimmed 
with  ermine.  At  his  feet  sat  a  Bacchus  riding  on  a  cask,  with 
a  rummer  in  one  hand  and  a  drinking  vessel  in  the  other. 
He  was  surrounded  by  intoxicated  Cardinals,  among  whom 
were  to  be  found  noblemen,  princes,  acting-governors,  and 
sometimes  the  Tsar  himself.  The  procession  would  pass 
along  the  street  followed  by  a  sledge  harnessed  to  four  huge 
hogs  driven  by  a  gentleman  of  rank.  Then  a  court  jester, 
dressed  as  Neptune,  with  crown,  long  white  beard,  and  trident, 
would  come  sitting  in  a  sort  of  mussel  shell,  accompanied  by 
two  sirens.  Then  a  throng  of  sledges  arranged  with  sails  like 
boats,  and  commanded  by  the  Admiral  or  the  Tsar.  Bergholtz 
describes  the  launching  of  a  ship  which  took  place  in  July, 
seventeen  hundred  and  twenty-one.  The  Tsar,  the  Prince- 
pope  and  all  his  Cardinals,  the  senators,  and  a  large  number 
of  the  first  men  of  the  empire  were  present.  No  one  was 
allowed  to  leave  the  ship  until  word  was  given.  "Almost  all 
were  drunk,  and  yet  they  desired  still  more,  until  their  powers 
were  exhausted.  The  great  Admiral  was  so  full  that  he  wept 
like  a  child,  which  is  said  to  be  a  habit  of  his  when  he  takes 
too  much.     The  Prince,  Menshikof,  was  so  intoxicated  that  he 


I6S3-1725.]     PETER   THE   GEEAT :   THE   EEFORMS.  85 

fell  dead  drunk,"  and  was  taken  home  by  his  servants.  "  The 
Prince  of  Moldavia  was  qnarrelling  with  the  oberpolitsei- 
meister  ;  here  a  couple  were  fighting,  there  another  couple 
■were  drinking,  and  swearing  everlasting  brotherhood  and 
fidelity."  Peter  forbade  the  use  of  servile  diminutives  and 
prostrations  before  the  Tsar,  and  by  blows  with  his  cane  he 
taught  his  nobility  to  feel  themselves  free  men  and  Euro- 
peans. 

ADMINISTRATIVE,   MILITARY,    AND   ECCLESIASTICAL 

REFORMS. 

The  ancient  duma  of  the  boyars  was  replaced  in  February, 
seventeen  hundred  and  eleven,  by  the  "  directing  senate,"  com- 
posed of  eight  members,  which  at  first  never  acted  save  in  the 
absence  of  the  Prince.  The  number  was  afterwards  increased, 
and  it  became  permanently  the  great  council  of  government, 
high  committee  of  finance,  and  supreme  court  of  justice. 
Peter  commanded  the  senate  to  be  obeyed  like  himself, 
but  on  all  important  questions  the  senate  made  its  report  to 
the  Tsar.  He  appointed,  in  connection  with  this  body,  a  pro- 
curator-general, charged  with  superintending  the  execution  of 
the  laws.  Peter  often  reproached  the  new  senators  with  con- 
ducting affairs  "  after  the  old  fashion,"  with  dragging  out  de- 
liberations, and  taking  bribes.  He  had  to  make  a  new  rule, 
in  virtue  of  which  senators  were  forbidden,  under  different 
penalties,  to  cry  out,  to  beat  each  other,  or  to  call  each  other 
thieves. 

Peter  suppressed  the  ancient  Muscovite  prikazui.  By  the 
advice  of  Leibnitz  he  created  instead,  after  the  German  model, 
"  colleges "  of  government  similar  to  those  by  which  the 
regent  Orleans  replaced  the  ministers  of  Louis  the  Four- 
teenth. There  were  ten  of  these  colleges :  those  of  foreign 
affairs,  war,  admiralty,  treasury,  revenue,  justice,  property  of  the 
nobles,  manufactures,  mines,  and  commerce.  A  collection  oi 
Swedish  edicts  was  translated  for  their  use.     As  they  had  few 


8G  HISTORi'   OF   EUSSIA.  [Chap.  III. 

capable  men,  foreigners  were  employed,  in  the  proportion  of 
one  for  each  college,  and  often  they  were  obliged  to  lesort  to 
interpreters  to  enable  them  to  understand  each  other.  Cap- 
tive Swedish  officers  and  dragoons  might  be  seen  administer- 
ing the  empire.  Peter  sent  for  Slavs  from  Bohemia,  Silesia, 
and  Moravia,  as  being  quicker  at  learning  the  Russian  lan- 
guage. He  despatched  forty  yoimg  men  to  Konigsberg  to 
study  the  elements  of  adndnistration  and  finance.  This  auto- 
crat permitted  his  colleges  to  elect  their  presidents.  In  seven- 
teen hundred  and  twenty-two,  the  office  of  president  of  the 
college  of  justice  being  vacant,  he  assembled  at  the  palace 
the  senators,  generals,  officers,  and  a  lumdred  members  of 
the  nobihty,  and  after  having  taken  their  oaths  made  them 
proceed  to  the  election  in  his  presence. 

Before  the  time  of  Peter  the  Great  the  provincial  govern- 
ments were  in  hopeless  confusion.  The  governors  of  prov- 
inces and  the  voievodui  had  at  one  and  the  same  time  the 
direction  of  war,  finance,  justice,  and  superintendence  of 
buildings.  In  December,  seventeen  hundred  and  eight,  Peter 
divided  the  empire  into  eight  governments,  subdivided  into 
thirty-nine  provinces,  which  were  afterwards  increased  to 
twelve  governments  and  forty-three  provinces ;  the  former 
were  administered  by  governors  and  vice-governors,  the  latter 
by  voievodui.  These  representatives  of  the  sovereign  were 
assisted  by  a  council,  or  landrath,  elected  by  the  nobles. 
The  towns  were  divided  into  classes  according  to  the  number 
of  inhabitants,  and  received  an  autonomous  and  municipal 
government ;  the  citizens  elected  burgomasters,  and  these  a 
president  or  mayor.  The  larger  cities  had  four  burgomasters, 
assisted  by  eight  councillors.  These,  with  the  mayor,  formed 
the  rathhaus,  or  corporation  of  the  city.  In  special  cases  the 
citizens  of  the  first  and  second  guilds  were  summoned  to  the 
council.  All  the  city  governments  of  Russia  were  subject  to 
a  superior  board  or  council,  chosen  from  the  municipal  coun- 
cil of  Saint  Petersburg,  of  which  one  half  was  composed  of 


16S2-1725.]     PETER   THE   GREAT:    THE   REFORMS.  87 

foreigners.  This  superior  council  watched  over  the  prosperity 
of  commerce  and  manufactures,  sanctioned  the  sentences  of 
death  pronounced  by  the  corporations  of  the  province,  decided 
disputes  between  the  ratldiaus  and  the  citizens,  confirmed  the 
municipal  elections,  and  sent  in  reports  to  the  senate.  The 
j)residing  officer  was  nominated  by  t*he  Tsar.  The  towns  had 
their  own  militia.  The  patriarchal  and  socialistic  constitu- 
tion of  the  rural  communes  was  not  touclied. 

Ignorance,  inexperience,  and  corruption  were  the  vices  of 
the  new  administration.  The  functionaries  had  always  present 
to  their  minds  the  advice  of  the  ancient  Tsars,  —  "  Live  upon 
thy  office,  and  satisfy  thyself."  Peter  attacked  with  fury  this 
deeply  rooted  abuse,  practised  by  the  chief  personages  of  the 
empire,  headed  by  Menshikof.  The  exactions  of  the  governor 
provoked  a  revolt  at  Astrakhan.  Another  governor  of  the 
same  city  was  condemned  by  Peter  to  be  torn  by  pigs.  In 
seventeen  hundred  and  eighteen  Gagarin,  Governor  of  Siberia, 
against  whom  many  complaints  had  come,  was  brought  from 
Tobolsk,  and  though  he  offered  to  give  up  a  part  of  his  spoils, 
was  put  to  death,  and  his  young  son,  Shafirof 's  son-in-law,  was 
reduced  to  a  common  sailor  and  deprived  of  his  property. 
Shafirof,  the  sou  of  one  of  the  translators  in  the  department 
of  foreign  affairs,  whom  the  Tsar  had  made  a  baron,  was  par- 
doned on  the  scaffold.  Nesterof,  after  having  made  the 
denunciation  of  thieves  a  profession,  Avas  himself  broken  on 
the  wheel  as  a  thief.  One  day  Peter  made  one  of  his  nobles 
show  him  the  accounts  of  his  expenditure,  and  proved  to  him 
that  he  was  robbing  the  State,  and  was  himself  robbed  in  turn 
by  his  steward.  The  Tsar  beat  him  with  his  own  hand,  and 
said  to  him,  "  Now  go  and  find  your  steward,  and  settle  ac- 
counts with  him."  Menshikof  himself  was  convicted  of  mis- 
use of  funds,  and  was  condemned  to  lose  his  sword  and  put 
on  probation.  Admiral  Apraxin  was  stripped  of  his  posses- 
sions and  titles,  and  kept  in  strict  confinement.  Afterwards 
the  Tsar  relented,  and  j\Ienshikof  paid  a  fine  of  five  hundred 


88  HISTOEY   OF   EUSSIA.  [Chap.  HI. 

thousand  and  Apraxin  three  hundred  thousand  rubles,  and 
both  drank  a  health  to  the  forgetfulness  of  the  past  at  Peter's 
table. 

The  recruits  were  the  chief  sufferers  from  extortions.  These 
unhappy  men,  who  Avere  torn  from  their  native  villages  and 
chained  like  galley-slaves,  were  thrown  into  prison  on  arriving 
at  their  halting-place,  were  fed  with  mushrooms,  upon  which 
tlieir  captains  made  them  graze  in  the  forests,  and,  as  a  natural 
consequence,  died  by  hundreds  before  reaching  their  regi- 
ments. Peter  was  obliged  to  invite  his  subjects  to  denounce 
the  thieves  by  promising  to  give  the  accusers  the  rank  and  the 
fortune  of  the  person  found  guilty. 

The  Ulozhenie,  the  code  of  Alexis  IMikhailovitch,  was  no 
longer  suitable  to  the  Russia  of  Peter  the  Great.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  his  reign,  therefore,  Peter  had  conmianded  his  boyars 
to  insert  in  the  proper  places  the  various  supplementary 
clauses  and  decrees  which  had  been  enacted  since  the  time  of 
Alexis.  The  boyars  worked  several  years  without  bringing 
the  new  edition  to  completion.  In  seventeen  hundred  and 
fourteen  he  intrusted  to  his  Senate  the  work  which  had  been 
begun  by  the  boyars  fourteen  years  before,  and  in  seventeen 
hundred  and  eighteen  a  new  edition  was  published,  with  the 
title  of  the  Revised  Ulozhenie.  But  Peter  was  not  satisfied 
with  this  :  he  Avished  an  entirely  new  code  of  laws,  and  de- 
termined to  select  the  Swedish  as  a  basis,  modifying  what  was 
inapplicable  in  it  to  the  Russians  by  means  of  ancient  Musco- 
vite laws  or  new  legislation.  This  project,  however,  could 
not  be  realized.  But,  nevertheless,  some  of  the  most  impor- 
tant enactments  of  Peter's  reign  were  borrowed  from  tlie 
Swedish  code,  more  especially  those  relating  to  the  regulation 
of  the  army  and  navy.  In  criminal  cases  he  still  employed 
torture,  though  with  mitigations.  He  punished  various  crimes 
by  sending  the  guilty  to  labor  in  the  public  works  or  the  gal- 
leys. Those  condemned  to  such  punishment  had  their  nostrils 
slit.     Witches    were  condemned  to  be  burnt.     Blasphemers 


1382-1723.]     PETER   THE    GREAT:    THE  REFORMS.  89 

had  their  tongues  torn  out,  and  were  tortured  to  death.  The 
form  of  procedure  he  introduced  had  all  the  faults  of  an  inqui- 
sition. Justice  was  administered  in  various  districts,  some- 
times by  tribunals  properly  so  called,  sometimes  by  the  voie- 
vodui,  the  commissioners,  or  by  the  magistrates  of  the  towns. 
At  Petersburg  sat  the  supreme  court,  consisting  of  delegates 
from  the  senate. 

The  Petersburg  police  was  controlled  by  the  general  politsei- 
meister,  that  of  Moscow  by  the  oberpolitsei-meister.  In  the 
large  towns  there  was  an  inspector  of  police  for  every  ten 
houses ;  all  the  citizens  over  twenty  years  of  age  had  to  enter 
the  service  of  the  watch.  The  governors,  vo'ievodui,  commis- 
sioners of  the  country,  and  all  who  held  authority,  were  re- 
sponsible for  the  public  safety  ;  for  the  Russia  of  that  day 
needed  strict  superintendence.  People  were  afraid  to  go  at 
night  without  lanterns,  although  the  streets  were  ordered  to 
be  furnished  with  lamps.  Moscow,  whose  streets  were  com- 
mon sewers,  began  to  be  paved  with  wood.  Servants,  under 
penalty  of  fines,  stripes,  or  the  knout,  were  enjoined  to  keep 
the  house-front  clean.  Owing  to  the  long  duration  of  the 
war  and  the  increase  in  the  taxes,  beggars  multiplied ;  well-to- 
do  citizens  were  not  ashamed  to  ask  for  alms,  or  to  send  their 
children  to  beg  in  the  streets  ;  they  were  in  future  to  be 
arrested  and  taken  before  the  police.  People  who  pretended 
to  be  in  the  public  service  and  were  furnished  with  false 
credentials,  and  imposed  on  the  credulity  of  the  peasants, 
were  sought  out  and  punished.  Hospitals  were  established 
for  the  sick,  workhouses  for  vagabonds,  the  insane  Avere 
housed  together,  usurers,  coiners,  and  forgers  either  suffered 
corporal  punishment  or  were  banished.  Most  difficult  of  all 
to  deal  with  were  the  brigands.  Brigandage  was  habitual  in 
Russia,  and  was  favored  by  the  vast  and  vacant  wilds,  the 
deep  forests,  the  passive  temper  of  the  peasants,  who  did 
not  dare  to  arm  for  tlie  defence  of  one  of  their  members, 
and  would  allow  him  to  be  despoiled  by  a  few  bandits,  and 


90  HISTOBT   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  III. 

tortured  in  presence  of  the  whole  village.  The  brigands 
formed  themselves  into  great  troops,  armed  and  disciphned 
in  the  European  manner,  furnished  with  cavalry  and  artillery ; 
they  pillaged  the  crown  taverns,  burned  the  villages,  invaded 
the  dwellings  of  the  nobles,  and  took  the  small  towns  by 
assault.  Their  recruits  were  Cossacks,  fugitive  peasants, 
soldiers  who  had  deserted,  and  unfrocked  priests ;  gentlemen, 
and  even  noble  ladies,  were  seen  riding  at  their  head,  thus 
augmenting  their  revenues  by  robbery.  Battles  had  to  be 
fought  before  security  could  be  restored. 

The  open  or  sullen  opposition  with  which  his  reforms  were 
met  caused  Peter  to  create  a  State  inquisition.  This  oppo- 
sition came  to  light  on  all  occasions.  The  ladies  of  honor, 
who  wore  the  European  costume  when  the  Tsar  AA^as  present, 
threw  it  off  with  contempt  when  he  went  away.  Insulting 
placards  were  affixed  to  the  w\alls.  Even  in  the  bosom  of  his 
own  family  the  Tsar  met  with  hostihty.  The  Preobrazhenskaia 
Kantseliaria,  or  secret  court  of  police,  had  originally  been 
founded  by  Ivan  the  Terrible.  Peter  revived  it,  and  gave  it 
the  jurisdiction  of  crimes  against  the  majesty  of  the  Tsar  and 
murders  committed  in  the  capital.  This  bureau  has  left  a  terril)le 
memory.  To  ruin  his  enemy  a  man  had  only  to  hint  treason 
to  one  of  the  secret  police,  and  immediately  the  accuser  and 
accused  were  arrested  and  conducted  to  the  "  hall  of  the  ques- 
tion," which  the  latter  seldom  left  unconvicted. 

The  increased  expenditure  caused  by  the  new  army  and 
navy,  and  the  change  in  administration,  obliged  Peter  to  in- 
crease his  revenues.  The  poll  or  capitation  tax  has  already 
been  mentioned.  Ecclesiastics  and  their  children,  nobles, 
soldiers  released  from  service,  foreigners,  the  inhabitants  of 
the  Baltic  provinces,  Bashkirs,  and  Lapps  were  alone  exempted 
from  it.  Even  free  peasants  were  liable.  Every  person  who 
lived  in  a  city  paid  one  hundred  and  twenty  kopeks,  but  the 
crown  and  church  peasants  paid  only  forty.  If  a  peasant  died, 
or  became  a  recruit,  in  the  time  between  one  census  and  the 


16S2-1725.]     PETER   THE    GREAT:    THE   REFORMS.  91 

following,  his  tax  must  be  paid ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  no 
account  was  taken  of  those  born  in  the  same  period.  Kurbatof 
introduced  the  tax  of  the  stamped  paper.  But  in  the  midst 
of  the  terrible  necessities  of  war  Peter  had  recourse  to  other 
expedients.  The  coinage  was  several  times  debased.  After 
the  battle  of  Narva  the  value  of  the  kopek  was  diminished. 
The  ruble,  in  seventeen  hundred  and  eighteen,  was  worth 
less  than  half  as  much  as  it  had  been  in  sixteen  hundred 
and  thirtj^-three.  The  officials  were  often  deprived  of  part  of 
their  pay.  The  raskolniki  were  doubly  taxed.  Those  who 
wore  beards  had  to  pay  from  thirty  to  one  hundred  rubles, 
according  to  their  fortune.  The  peasants  were  taxed  two  dengi, 
or  half-kopeks,  for  their  beards  when  they  entered  the  towns. 
Baths,  mills,  huts,  and  bees  were  taxed.  All  treasure-troves 
or  new  mines  became  the  property  of  the  crown. 

One  day  Peter  ordered  all  oak  cofhns  at  the  makers'  to  be 
seized  and  sold  for  his  profit.  In  seventeen  hundred  and 
eighteen  the  Tsar  renounced  all  the  monopolies  which  for  a 
long  time  had  been  the  possession  of  the  crowm,  except  those 
on  tar,  potash,  caviare,  and  isinglass.  Some  of  the  more  un- 
certain occupations,  such  as  the  whale-fisheries,  w^ere  let  out  to 
companies  on  payment  of  a  fixed  impost.  The  crown  leased 
to  taverns  the  right  of  selling  mead,  beer,  and  brandy,  and  it 
also  controlled  the  price  of  salt.  The  revenues  of  the  State, 
in  fifteen  years  alone,  from  seventeen  hundred  and  ten  to  seven- 
teen hundred  and  twenty-five,  rose  from  three  to  ten  million 
rubles. 

After  the  dissolution  of  the  streltsui  the  regular  army  was 
composed  of  infantry  and  dragoons,  dressed  in  European  uni- 
forms, and  raised  to  two  hundred  and  ten  thousand  men.  The 
peasantry  were  subjected  to  a  system  of  conscription,  which 
was  long  to  be  a  source  of  despotism  and  tyranny.  At  this 
period  was  formed  a  whole  popular  literature  of  "  lamenta- 
tions of  recruits."  The  irregular  troops  of  the  Cossacks  and 
the  tribes  of  the  east  furnished   endless  numbers  of  soldiers. 


92  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  III. 

A  maritime  conscription  was  established  along  the  banks  of 
lakes,  rivers,  and  the  sea.  The  Tsar  established  also  naval 
academies,  especially  for  young  Russians.  Soon  the  Russian 
fleet  numbered  forty-eight  ships  of  the  line,  eight  hundred 
vessels  of  a  lower  class,  and  twenty-eight  thousand  sailors. 

In  seventeen  hundred,  upon  the  death  of  the  Patriarch 
Adrian,  who  had  little  sympathy  with  the  reforms,,  Peter  con- 
ferred on  Stephan  lavorski  the  title  of  "  Superintendent  of  the 
Patriarchal  Throne."  Peter  had  resolved  to  abolish  this  insti- 
tution, which  was  due  to  Godunof,  and  to  give  to  the  Church 
itself  the  collegiate  organization  with  which  he  was  at  that  time 
so  fascinated.  The  preamble  of  the  edict  instituting  the  Holy 
Synod,  which  was  compiled  by  Feofan  Prokopovitch,  is  very 
curious :  "  The  collegiate  organization  will  not  cause  the 
country  to  fear  the  troubles  and  seditions  that  may  arise  when 
only  one  man  finds  himself  at  the  head  of  the  Church.  The 
simple  people  are  not  quick  to  seize  the  distinction  between 
the  spiritual  and  imperial  power ;  struck  with  the  virtue  and 
the  splendor  of  the  supreme  pastor  of  the  Church,  they  imagine 
that  he  is  a  second  sovereign,  equal  and  even  superior  in  power 
to  the  autocrat.  If  a  dispute  takes  place  between  the  Patri- 
arch and  the  Tsar,  they  are  disposed  to  take  the  side  of  the 
former,  believing  that  they  thus  embrace  the  cause  of  God." 
This  mistrust  of  the  spiritual  power  is  again  found  in  the 
Ukas,  in  which  bishops  are  recommended  to  avoid  pride  and 
show,  never  to  allow  themselves  to  be  supported  under  the 
arm  in  walking,  unless  they  are  ill,  and  to  permit  no  prostra- 
tions before  them.  In  the  same  manner  as  Peter  had  sup- 
pressed the  hetmanate  and  established  the  College  of  Little 
Russia,  he  suppressed  the  patriarchate  and  founded  the  Holy 
Synod.  He  wished  to  be  sole  emperor  in  Moscow,  as  in  the 
Ukraina. 

The  Holy  Synod  was  composed  of  a  certain  number  of 
bishops,  among  whom  a  procurator-general,  often  a  soldier, 
represented  the  Tsar.     The  Holy  Synod  was  to  be  the  instru- 


1682-1725.]     PETER   THE   GREAT:   THE   REFORMS.  93 

ment  of  refona  in  the  Church.  Each  bishop  was  ordered  to 
keep  a  school  in  his  diocese,  which  was  to  be  supported  by 
the  revenues  of  the  churches  and  cloisters  ;  the  sons  of  the 
popes  who  refused  to  be  educated  were  to  be  taken  as  soldiers. 
The  grave  question  of  monasteries  was  reopened,  but  Peter 
did  not  yet  dare  to  undertake  the  liquidation  of  their  property. 
As  Russia  needed  to  be  peopled,  no  Russian  was  allowed  to 
become  a  monk  till  he  was  thirty.  No  servant  of  the  State 
might  enter  a  cloister  without  leave.  As  the  monks  showed 
themselves  more  and  more  hostile  to  reform,  they  w^ere  for- 
bidden to  shut  themselves  up  to  write,  or  to  have  iidv  or  pens 
in  their  cells.  They  were,  however,  compelled  to  work  at 
some  trade.  Hospitals  and  schools  were  given  into  their 
charge,  and  also  broken-down  soldiers,  who  found  in  the  mon- 
astery an  honorable  asylum.  The  bishops,  on  the  contrary, 
were  encouraged  by  Peter  to  write.  Stephan  lavorski  pub- 
lished his  book  called  "  The  Signs  of  the  Coming  of  Antichrist," 
to  refute  Talitski,  who  hatl  seen  in  the  reforms  of  Peter  the 
omens  of  the  end  of  the  world.  As  Voltaire  relates,  Talitski 
was  put  to  death  and  lavorski  rewarded.  "  Peter,  the  Corner- 
stone of  the  Faith,"  another  of  his  works,  was  directed  against 
Protestantism,  but  was  not  published  untd  seventeen  hundred 
and  twenty-eight,  after  his  death.  Saint  Dmitri  of  Rostof 
wrote  his  "Investigation  of  the  P^askolnik  Church  of  Bruinsk." 
Assailed  at  once  by  the  religions  of  the  West  and  by  the 
raskol  sects,  the  orthodox  Church  was  forced  to  defend  itself. 
The  dissenters  were  about  this  time  divided  into  communities 
with  priests  and  communities  without  priests.  The  most 
fanatical  raskolniki  fled  into  the  deep  forests,  and  there 
founded  hermitages  and  even  centres  of  population,  which 
escaped  for  a  long  while  the  knowledge  of  government. 
Tracked  and  driven  to  extremity,  certain  enthusiasts  burned 
themselves  in  a  sort  of  auto-da-fe.  Many  of  these  shepherds 
of  the  desert,  like  Daniel  Vikulof  and  the  brothers  Denisof, 
made  themselves  famous  by  polemical  w^orks.     Peter  wished 


94  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  III. 

to  relax  the  systems  of  preceding  regimes,  and  protected  all 
peaceable  subjects  who  did  not  interfere  with  politics.  Pass- 
ing through  the  deserts  of  the  Vuiga,  he  found  there  a  colony 
of  nidustrious  raskolniki,  ordered  them  to  be  left  in  peace,  and 
begged  them  to  pray  for  him.  "  God,"  he  said,  "  has  given 
the  Tsar  power  over  the  nations,  but  Christ  alone  has  power 
over  the  conscience  of  men."  He  contented  himself  with 
doubling  the  taxes,  and  imposing  a  peculiar  dress  on  the 
raskolniki  of  Moscow.  Being,  however,  a  true  believer,  he 
regarded  the  faith  of  the  raskol  as  an  error,  and  did  not  wish 
it  to  spread.  Penalties  were  enforced  against  its  propagators, 
and  precautions  taken  with  regard  to  their  listeners.  The 
proper  attendance  every  Sunday  at  church  and  at  Easter 
Communion  became  a  matter  of  oblio;ation. 

He  followed  the  same  policy  with  i-egar'd  to  Western  re- 
ligions, allowed  foreigners  to  have  their  churches  in  Saint 
Petersburg,  and  himself  attended  the  French  church,  where 
his  chair  is  still  preserved.  The  Nevski  Prospekt,  bordered 
with  dissenting  churches,  was  the  "  prospect  of  tolerance." 
He  protected  the  Capuchins  established  at  Astrakhan,  and 
even  tried  to  live  on  c^ood  terms  with  the  Jesuits  ;  but  as  thev 
continued  to  work  at  their  propaganda,  they  were  banished 
in  sixteen  hundred  and  eighty-nine,  then  recalled,  then  again 
definitely  expelled  in  seventeen  hundred  and  ten.  "  He  en- 
dured the  Capuchins,"  says  Voltaire,  "  as  being  monks  of  no 
consequence,  but  regarded  the  Jesuits  as  dangerous  political 
enemies."  The  friend  of  the  Dutch  and  the  English  perse- 
cuted the  foreign  Protestants  who  insulted  the  orthodox  faith 
by  word  or  deed.  A  Russian  woman,  Nastasia  Zima,  having 
spread  the  principles  of  Luther,  was  conducted,  with  her  hus- 
band and  six  other  neophytes,  before  the  terrible  secret  cham- 
ber, and  was  cruelly  tortured. 


NEVSKI    PROSPECT. 


1682-1725.]      PETER   THE    GREAT:    THE    REFORMS.  95 

ECONOMIC   REFORMS:    MANUFACTURES. 

Peter  the  Great  had  toiled  liard  to  estabUsh  himself  on  the 
Baltic,  because  he  felt  that  the  White  Sea,  frozen  over  for  so 
many  months  in  the  year,  was  insufficient  to  secure  to  Russia 
vuiinterrupted  commiuiication  with  the  West.  When  Saint 
Petersburg  was  founded,  he  wished  to  suppress  Arkhangel  for 
the  benefit  of  the  new  port,  and  forbade  the  merchants  to 
carry  their  merchandise  down  the  Dwina.  This  project  met 
with  the  most  lively  opposition.  Apraxin  assured  him  that 
such  a  measure  would  be  the  ruin  of  Russian  commerce. 
The  Dutch  traders  and  the  Hanse  towns  represented  that  the 
money  they  had  spent  in  establishing  themselves  at  Arkhangel 
would  be  lost,  that  it  Avould  be  necessary  to  build  vessels  for 
the  Baltic  on  an  entirely  different  model,  that  they  were 
obliged  to  pay  for  the  privilege  of  passing  through  the  Sound, 
and  that  in  case  of  a  Avar  the  smallest  merchant-ship  would 
there  need  a  convoy.  The  Russians  who  were  accustomed  to 
go  to  Arkhangel  showed  great  repugnance  to  the  journey  to 
Saint  Petersburg,  across  a  Avide  space  without  provender,  and 
where  they  would  find  no  inns  such  as  had  been  established 
for  centuries  on  the  route  to  the  White  Sea.  It  Avas  necessary 
to  make  a  complete  revolution  in  the  habits  of  Russian  com- 
merce, in  the  distribution  of  the  centres  of  industry  and  of 
the  market  towns.  The  conductors  of  the  caravan,  in  despair 
at  the  length  of  the  voyage,  often  deserted,  abandoning  the 
Avagons  or  pillaging  the  merchandise.  Peter  the  Great 
yielded,  leaving  time  to  justify  his  preference  for  the  new 
city.  He  authorized  trade  both  by  way  of  Arkhangel  and 
Saint  Petersburg,  contenting  himself  Avith  raising  by  a  fourth 
the  tariflp  of  customs  of  the  former  town.  Above  all,  he 
resolved  to  connect  the  city  of  the  Neva  Avith  the  great 
river  artery  of  Russia,  the  Volga.  To  this  end  he  created 
the  canal  of  the  Ladoga,  Avhich  has  a  length  of  sixty-three 
versts,  laid  plans  to   bring  the  White  Sea  into  communica- 


96  HISTORY  OP  EUSSIA.  [Chap.  III. 

tion  with  the  Gulf  of  Finland,  and  to  unite  the  Black  Sea  with 
the  Caspian  by  means  of  a  canal  between  the  Don  and  the 
Volga. 

Peter  negotiated  treaties  of  commerce  with  many  European 
States,  stirred  up  the  national  agi'iculture,  whose  progress  had 
been  hindered  by  the  slavery  of  the  })eople,  promulgated  an 
edict  which  forced  them  to  reap  with  scythes  instead  of  the 
old  hooks,  encouraged  the  cultivation  of  the  vine  and  the 
mulberry  in  the  regions  of  the  southeast,  ordered  tobacco  to 
be  planted,  introduced  new  kinds  of  cattle  into  Kholmogorui 
and  other  central  provinces,  stimulated  sheep-raising,  which 
was  necessary  for  his  wool  factories,  sent  for  Silesian  shep- 
herds, and  made  Russians  go  to  learn  the  trade  in  Silesia ; 
moreover,  he  created  the  imperiid  stud.  He  took  measures 
to  preserve  the  forests,  and  caused  his  whole  empire  to  be 
searched  for  coal-beds.  To  counteract  the  indolence  of  such 
nobles  as  might  have  mines  upon  their  lands,  he  declared 
that,  in  the  case  of  their  remaining  unworked,  strangers 
should  have  leave  to  work  them,  paying  only  a  small  premium 
to  the  proprietor.  He  decreed  stripes  and  the  penalty  of 
death  aijainst  any  one  who  should  dare  to  interfere  with  the 
mining  labors  and  researches.  Under  him  began  the  fortunes  of 
the  Demidofs,  the  great  mine-owners,  as  in  the  reign  of  Ivan  the 
Fourth  began  the  fortunes  of  the  Strogonofs.  Peter,  passing 
one  day  through  Tula,  inquired  if  there  was  a  workman  skil- 
ful enough  to  manufacture  a  musket  like  a  foreign  one  which 
he  had  with  him.  Demid  was  recommended  as  a  good  gun- 
smith, and  presented  himself  before  the  Tsar,  who  said,  "  That 
man  would  make  a  fine  grenadier  for  my  guards."  But  the 
man  begged  him  to  spare  the  father  of  four  children.  Peter 
was  so  well  satisfied  with  the  musket  which  Demid  made,  that 
he  ordered  several  more,  and  finally  gave  him  iron-mmes  in 
the  Ural  Mountains  for  the  manufacture  of  camion.  The 
Demidofs  finally  became  immensely  rich,  and  Pavel  Demidof 
founded   at    Moscow    the    Hospital   for   Foundlings.      Peter 


1682-1725.]     PETER  THE   GREAT:   THE   REFORMS.  97 

established  and  encouraged  his  courtiers  to  estabhsh,  manu- 
factures of  chemical  productions  ;  of  cloth,  from  the  managers 
of  which  he  purchased  the  materials  which  he  wanted  for  the 
uniforms  of  the  army  ;  of  sail-cloth,  for  which  the  navy  would 
furnish  a  ready  market.  The  French  were  specially  skilled  in 
makino;  use  of  the  Russian  wool.  The  Russians  OAve  them 
the  first  manufactories  of  tapestries;  a  Frenchman  named 
Manvriou  opened  a  stocking  manufactory  at  Moscow.  The 
Englishman  Humphrey  introduced  an  improvement  in  the 
fabrication  of  Russia  leather;  the  Tsar  re(|uired  every  town 
to  send  a  certain  number  of  shoemakers  to  take  lessens  in 
their  art  at  Moscow,  threatening  them,  if  they  continued  to 
work  in  their  old  way,  with  confiscation  and  the  galleys.  The 
admiral  Apraxin  manufactured  silk  brocades.  A  muzhik  in- 
vented a  lacquer  superior  to  anything  in  Europe  except  that 
of  Venice.  Considering  the  versatihty  of  the  national  genius, 
economic  progress  would  have  immensely  developed  if  the 
Tsar  had  been  able  to  secure  the  Russian  merchants  against 
the  cupidity  of  the  great  and  the  exactions  of  the  officials,  — 
a  danger  already  noted  by  Fletcher  in  the  sixteenth  century. 
Nothwithstanding  this  drawback,  more  than  two  hundred 
mills  were  opened  in  this  reign. 


PRACTICAL  CHARACTER  OF  THE  SCHOOLS   FOUNDED 

BY  PETER. 

Peter  the  Great  took  great  pains  with  the  education  of  his 
people.  He  felt  that  the  surest  way  of  obtaining  those  who 
would  help  him  and  would  continue  his  work  was  gradually 
to  initiate  the  nation  into  his  new  ideas,  and  little  by  little  to 
reconcile  them  to  reform.  He  especially  insisted  on  the  edu- 
cation of  the  sons  of  nobles  and  priests  ;  and  it  was  decreed 
that  a  noble  who  could  not  read,  write,  nor  express  himself 
in  a  foreign  tongue,  should  lose  this  birthright.  But  it  was  to 
be  many  years  before  the  masses  of  the  people  were  to  have 


98  HISTORY    OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  III. 

the  means  of  instruction.  A  certain  number  of  elementary 
schools  to  which  all  the  children  of  officials,  from  the  age  of 
ten  to  fifteen,  were  obliged  to  be  sent,  Avere,  however,  founded 
in  all  the  provinces,  and  the  pupils  of  the  mathematical  schools 
of  Saint  Petersburg  were  sent  there  as  masters.  These  schools 
of  Peter's  had  all  a  practical  character  and  were  of  innnediate 
utility.  Classical  studies  were  neglected,  and  he  did  not  trou- 
ble himself  to  create  branch  establishments  to  the  Greco-Latin 
academy  at  Moscow.  In  his  fierce  struggle  with  the  forces  of 
the  past  he  hastened  to  throw  Russia  open  to  his  natural  aux- 
iliaries, the  ideas  and  sciences  of  the  West.  The  schools  he 
multiplied  were  special  schools,  —  a  naval  academy,  a  school 
of  engineers,  a  school  of  book-keeping.  The  literature  he 
encouraged  was  a  literature  of  translation,  by  means  of  which 
a  huge  mass  of  European  ideas  could  be  introduced  all  at 
once.  He  also  encouraged  polemic  writings,  to  plead  the 
cause  of  reform  before  the  tribunal  of  Russian  and  foreign 
opinion.  It  was  for  this  reason  that  he  had  an  enormous 
number  of  technical  books  translated,  employing  for  the  pur- 
pose the  professors  of  the  Greco-Latin  academy,  the  brothers 
Likhudi,  who  had  retired  to  Novgorod,  and  even  the  members 
of  the  synod.  Some  of  the  books  were  translated  at  Moscow, 
and  some  were  caused  to  be  translated  abroad,  many  at  first 
into  Tchek,  so  that  the  Muscovites  might  more  easily  reproduce 
them  in  their  own  tongue.  History,  geography,  jurisprudence, 
political  economy,  navigation,  military  sciences,  agriculture, 
and  philology  were  soon  represented  in  Russia  by  numerous 
books,  translated  from  Western  languages.  Peter  himself 
gave  his  brigade  of  writers  advice  which  shows  his  practical 
sense,  and  even  his  instinctive  literary  taste.  He  said  to 
Zotof :  "  You  must  beware  of  translating  word  for  word  with- 
out knowing  the  complete  meaning  of  the  text.  You  must 
read  with  care,  become  penetrated  with  the  sense  of  your  au- 
thor, must  be  able  to  think  his  thoughts  in  Russian,  and  only 
after  that  try  to   reproduce  them."     He  also   recommended 


1(382-1735.]  PETER  THE  GREAT:  THE  REEORMS.       99 

them  to  refrain  from  long  dissertations  and  useless  digressions, 
with  which  the  Germans  fill  their  books  to  make  them  appear 
thicker,  and  which  only  serve  to  waste  time  and  to  disgust 
the  reader."  On  the  other  hand,  he  forbade  the  suppression 
of  some  passages  in  Puffendorf,  where  Russian  barbarism  is 
denounced.  His  subjects  must  learn  to  blush  for  their  rude- 
ness before  they  could  cure  themselves  of  it.  He  caused 
books  to  be  printed  in  Holland,  in  which  he  attempted  to 
teach  the  Europeans  Avhat  Russia  was,  and  to  appreciate  his 
reforms  ;  while  he  published  others  in  Russia  to  make  his 
subjects  acquainted  with  Europe.  He  had  recourse  to  Saint 
Dmitri,  Feofan,  and  Feofilakt,  who  by  their  polemical  wi'itiiigs 
combated  superstitions  and  sects  hostile  to  the  State.  Other 
writers  turned  into  ridicule  on  the  stage,  by  means  of  oper- 
ettas, all  the  enemies  of  reform,  fanatical  raskolniki,  the  deacon 
who  wept  because  his  son  was  torn  from  him  and  sent  to 
school,  the  employes  who  fished  in  troubled  waters,  the  parti- 
sans of  the  ancient  customs,  who  regretted  the  "  good  old 
times,"  when  German  garments  were  unknown,  and  men  wore 
long  beards.  Natalia,  Peter's  sister,  associated  herself  in  his 
AYork  by  composing  Russian  plays.  The  merchant  Passoshkof 
wrote  his  book  on  "  Poverty  and  Riches,"  a  sort  of  doinostroi, 
in  which  all  the  changes  in  manners  since  the  time  of  the 
priest  Silvester  can  be  followed.  Passoshkof  dared  to  lift 
up  his  voice  in  fevor  of  the  oppressed  peasant,  to  demand  the 
establishment  of  a  tribunal  before  which  all  Russian  subjects 
should  be  equal,  a  regular  organization  of  justice  and  adminis- 
tration, which  should  protect  the  people  against  those  who  rob 
in  public,  the  brigands  and  thieves,  and  those  who  steal  in 
secret,  the  employes  and  officials.  He  expected  great  things 
of  Peter.  "Unhappily,"  he  says,  "our  great  monarch  is  al- 
most alone,  with  ten  others,  in  pulling  upwards,  while  milHons 
of  individuals  pull  downwards.  How  then  can  we  hope  for  a 
good  result  ?  " 

Peter  needed  means  of  rapid   publication.     But  Russian 


100  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  Ill, 

printing  had  made  little  progress  since  the  sixteenth  century ; 
It  had  tried  specially  to  imitate  the  ancient  Slavonic  manu- 
scripts, and  its  method  was  extremely  slow.  Peter  abandoned 
the  Slavonic  alphabet,  no  longer  in  use  except  for  the  Church 
books  ;  he  was  the  creator  of  the  Russian  alpliabet  properly 
so  called,  the  civil  alphabet,  which  is  merely  a  modification 
of  the  Greek  alphabet.  He  improved  the  machines  and  the 
types,  imported  Dutch  printers,  and  made  printing  the  instru- 
ment of  a  powerful  and  rapid  propaganda.  In  his  reign 
there  were  two  printing-presses  instead  of  one  at  Moscow, 
four  at  Saint  Petersburg,  and  others  at  Tchernigof,  Novgorod 
the  Great,  and  Novgorod-Severski.  He  founded  the  Gazette 
of  Saint  Petersburg,  the  first  public  newspaper  in  Russia. 

A  prince  who  had  studied  medicine  and  surgery  in  the 
West,  who  sometimes  practised  on  his  courtiers,  took  out  a 
tooth  or  lanced  an  abscess,  could  not  neglect  an  art  so  necessary 
to  his  vast  empire,  w^here  the  mortahty  of  infants  was  a  bar  to 
the  increase  of  population.  He  intrusted  to  Doctor  Bidloo 
the  management  of  the  hospitals  and  the  instruction  of 
fifty  young  men.  In  seventeen  hinidred  and  eighteen  he 
put  forth  an  edict  enjoining  the  collection  of  valuable  minerals, 
of  extraordinary  bones  that  might  be  found  in  the  fields,  of 
antique  inscriptions  on  stone  or  metal,  of  any  monstrosities 
of  birth  occurring  among  men  or  animals.  "  There  are  cer- 
tain to  be  some  of  these  births,"  says  the  ordinance,  "  but 
ignorant  people  make  mysteries  of  them,  believing  that  the 
birth  of  these  monsters  is  due  to  some  diabolic  influence. 
This  is  impossible,  for  it  is  God  and  not  the  devil  who  is 
the  creator  of  all  things."  Peter  had  a  taste  for  geography  ; 
in  seventeen  hundred  and  nineteen  he  fitted  out  an  expedition 
to  Kamtchatka,  to  solve  the  question  asked  by  Leibnitz  :  Is 
Asia  united  to  America  ?  In  seventeen  hundred  and  twenty 
he  opened  a  school  for  the  improvement  of  maps.  The  science 
of  history  also  has  deep  obligations  to  him  ;  in  seventeen  hun- 
dred and  twenty-two  he  ordered  a  collection  to  be  made  in 


1682-1725.]     PETER  THE   GREAT:   THE   REFORMS.  101 

the  archives  of  the  monasteries,  of  the  chronicles  and  letters 
of  the  Tsars,  and  had  copies  taken  of  them.  Polykarpof  wrote 
a  History  of  Russia  from  the  sixteenth  century,  for  which  the 
Tsar  gave  him  a  reward  of  two  hundred  rubles.  Finally,  in 
seventeen  hundred  and  twenty-four,  Peter  the  Great,  who  was 
at  the  time  corresponding  member  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences 
in  Paris,  founded  that  of  Saint  Petersburg  with  a  gift  of  two 
hundred  thousand  rubles,  and  assigned  it  a  revenue  of  twenty- 
four  thousand  nine  hundred  and  twelve  rubles  drawn  from  the 
revenues  of  the  customs  of  Narva,  Dorpat,  and  Pernava,  desiring 
it,  above  all,  to  devote  itself  to  translations,  and  to  teach  its 
pupils  practical  sciences  and  languages.  The  utilitarian  char 
acter  of  Peter's  creations  is  found  even  in  his  Academy.  As 
it  was  not  possible  at  that  time  to  count  on  the  Russians  to 
form  a  learned  body,  the  first  academicians  were  necessarily 
foreigners.  Germany  furnished  Wolff  and  Hermann  ;  France, 
Daniel  Bernouilli,  the  famous  mathematician,  philosopher,  and 
physiologist,  and  Joseph  De  I'lsle,  who  was  summoned  to 
found  the  department  of  astronomy.  Thus  a  country  which 
as  yet  liad  neither  secondary  schools  nor  universities  was 
given  an  academy. 

FOUNDATION    OF    SAINT   PETERSBURG. 

Saint  Petersburg  was  now  fairly  founded.  Its  situation,  as 
Goethe  remarks,  "  recalls  that  of  Amsterdam  or  of  Venice, 
the  Italian  Amsterdam."  The  wide  and  majestic  Neva,  which 
issues  from  the  great  lakes  of  the  north,  there  divides  into 
four  arms,  the  great  and  little  Neva,  and  the  great  and 
little  Nevka.  If  we  add  to  these  its  numerous  affluents,  the 
Fontanka,  the  Okhta,  and  the  two  Tchernai'as,  we  shall  at 
present  find  fourteen  water-courses,  a  lake,  eight  canals,  and 
nineteen  islands.  It  is  distinctively  the  aquatic  city,  and 
is  exposed  to  terrible  inundations  when  the  vast  reser- 
voirs of  the  Ladoga  and  Onega  overflow,  or  when  the  west 


102  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  III. 

winds  force  the  waters  of  the  Baltic  back  toward  the  Neva. 
No  buildina;  is  ever  erected  there  without  first  strengthening; 
the  foundation  by  driving  in  many  wooden  piles.  When  Peter 
the  Great  first  cast  his  eyes  over  the  country,  after  the  capture 
of  Nienschantz,  there  were  only  dark  forests,  vast  marshes, 
dreary  wastes,  where,  according  to  the  poet,  "  a  Tchud  fisher- 
man, a  sorrowful  son  of  his  step-mother  Nature,  might  occa- 
sionally be  seen  alone  on  the  marshy  shore,  casting  his  worn- 
out  fine  into  these  nameless  waters."  The  Finnish  names  then 
borne  by  the  islands,  on  which  palaces  were  afterwards  to 
rise,  are  very  significant ;  there  were  the  Isle  of  Brushwood, 
the  Isle  of  Birches,  the  Isle  of  Goats,  the  Isle  of  Hares,  the 
Isle  of  Bufi'aloes,  Isle  Michael,  a  name  for  the  bear,  and  the 
Wild  Isle.  In  Enisary,  or  "  the  Isle  of  Hares,"  Peter  built  in 
seventeen  hundred  and  three  the  new  fortress  of  Saint  Peter 
and  Saint  Paul.  There  he  assembled  regular  soldiers,  Cossacks, 
Tatars,  Kalmuicki,  Ingrian  or  Karelian  natives,  and  peasants 
of  the  interior,  in  all  more  than  forty  thousand  men.  No 
tools  were  provided  for  their  first  labors ;  the  muzhik  dug 
the  soil  with  sticks  or  his  nails,  and  carried  the  earth  in  his 
caftan.  He  had  to  sleep  in  the  open  air  among  the  marshes ; 
he  often  lacked  food,  and  the  workmen  died  by  thousands. 
Afterwards  the  service  was  made  more  regular.  Peter  in- 
stalled himself  in  the  celebrated  little  wooden  house  on  the 
right  bank,  watching  the  building,  sometimes  piloting  with 
his  own  hand  the  first  Dutch  ships  wliich  ventured  into  these 
waters,  sometimes  giving  chase  to  Swedish  vessels,  which  came 
to  insult  the  infant  capital.  In  November,  seventeen  hundred 
and  three,  he  himself  piloted  the  first  merchant-ship  into  his 
new  port.  Peter  granted  the  captain  freedom  from  tolls  for 
his  cargo  of  wine  and  salt,  and  presented  him  with  five  hun- 
dred ducats,  and  each  of  the  sailors  with  two  hundred  reichs- 
thaler.  The  same  favors  were  shown  to  the  next  ship,  which 
was  English.  On  the  Isle  of  Buff'aloes,  afterwards  called  the 
Vasili-Ostrof,   situated  on  the   northern  bank  of  the    Neva, 


PETER'S    COTTAGE. 


1682-1725.]     PETEK  THE   GREAT:  THE  REFORMS.  103 

numerous  edifices  rose  ;  the  southern  bank,  which  became  the 
real  site  of  the  town,  seemed  to  be  at  that  time  neglected. 
It  contained  only  the  Admiralty,  to  which  Anna  Ivanovna 
added  a  spire;  the  cathedral  of  Saint  Isaac,  then  built  of 
wood,  now  of  marble  and  bronze ;  the  church  of  Saint  Alex- 
ander Nevski,  where  Peter  the  Great  deposited  the  remains  of 
the  first  conqueror  of  the  Swedes ;  the  house  of  Apraxin,  on 
the  site  of  which  Elisabeth  built  the  Winter  Palace,  and  the 
already  splendid  mansions  of  the  Millionaia.  Through  it  the 
Nevski  Prospekt,  the  most  magnificent  boulevard  in  Europe, 
was  to  run.  The  city  was  built  and  settled  by  dint  of  edicts. 
Finns,  Esthonians,  Tatars,  Kahnuicki,  Swedish  prisoners,  and 
merchants  of  Novgorod  were  transplanted  thither;  and  in 
seventeen  hundred  and  seven  they  were  aided  by  thirty  thou- 
sand day  laborers  from  the  country.  To  attract  all  the  masons 
of  the  empire,  it  was  forbidden  on  pain  of  exile  and  confisca- 
tion to  construct  stone  houses  anywhere  but  at  Saint  Peters- 
burg. Every  proprietor  owning  five  hundred  peasants  was 
obliged  to  raise  a  stone  house  of  two  stories  ;  those  who  were 
poor  clubbed  together  to  build  one  among  themselves.  Every 
boat  that  wanted  to  enter  had  to  bring  a  certain  number  of 
unhewn  stones,  for  stone  was  lacking  in  these  wastes.  Prov- 
ender was  also  wanting,  and  to  save  it  Peter  proscribed  the 
use  of  carriages,  and  encouraged  navigation  by  the  river  and 
canals ;  every  inhabitant  was  obliged  to  have  his  boat,  and 
only  by  water  could  the  Court  be  approached. 

In  seventeen  hundred  and  six  Peter  wrote  to  Menshikof 
that  all  was  going  on  wonderfully,  and  that  "  he  seemed  here 
in  paradise."  He  decorated  the  church  of  the  fortress  with 
carvings  in  ivory,  the  work  of  his  own  hands,  and  hung  it  with 
flags  conquered  from  the  Swedes;  he  there  in  August,  seventeen 
hundred  and  twenty-three,  made  a  great  festival  in  honor  of 
the  founding  of  his  fleet,  and  consecrated,  amid  the  thunders 
of  artillery,  the  little  boat  which  the  English  government  had 
given  Ivan  the   Fourth.     It  was  named    "the  little    grand- 


104  HISTORY   OF   EUSSIA.  [Chap.  III. 

father  of  many  large  grandchildren."  Breaking  through  the 
tradition  which  insisted  that  the  princes  should  be  buried 
at  Saint  Michael  at  Moscow,  he  selected  a  place  in  the 
Peter-Paul  Chiu'ch  for  his  own  tomb  and  that  of  his  suc- 
cessors. "  Before  the  new  capital,"  says  Pushkin,  "  Moscow 
bowed  her  head,  as  an  imperial  widow  bows  before  a  young 
Tsaritsa." 

Saint  Petersburg  had  another  enemy  besides  the  Swedes,  — 
the  inundations.  The  soil  was  not  yet  raised  by  the  incessant 
heaping  up  of  materials ;  the  granite  quays  did  not  yet  con- 
fine the  formidable  river.  In  seventeen  hundred  and  five 
nearly  the  whole  town  was  flooded  ;  in  seventeen  hundred  and 
twenty-one  all  the  streets  were  navigable,  and  Peter  was  nearly 
drowned  in  the  Nevski  Prospekt.  The  enemies  of  reform, 
exasperated  by  the  desertion  of  Moscow,  rejoiced  over  these 
disasters,  and  predicted  that  this  German  town,  built  by  for- 
eign hands  and  soiled  by  the  presence  of  heretic  temples,  would 
disappear  beneath  the  floods,  that  some  day  the  place  of  this 
cursed  city  should  be  sought  in  vain.  Even  at  the  end  of 
Peter's  reign  it  was  the  general  opinion  that  after  his  death 
the  Court  and  the  nobility  would  return  to  Moscow,  and  that 
the  city  and  the  fleet  created  by  the  Tsar  would  be  abandoned. 
They  were  mistaken  ;  the  town  that  he  had  flung  like  a  for- 
lorn hope  on  the  newly  conquered  soil  remained  the  seat  of 
the  empire.  Russia  is  almost  the  only  State  that  has  built  its 
capital  on  its  very  frontiers.  Saint  Petersburg  was  not  only 
to  be  the  "  window  "  open  to  the  West,  but  it  was  to  be  also 
the  centre  of  the  Russian  regeneration.  More  freely,  more 
completely  than  at  Moscow  the  Holy,  where  everything  re- 
called the  traditions  and  recollections  of  the  past,  Peter  could 
enthrone  at  Saint  Petersburg  the  sentiments  of  toleration  for 
the  Protestant  and  Catholic  religions,  and  sympathy  for  for- 
eigners, who  were  always  detested  at  Moscow.  He  could 
more  easily  persuade  the  nobles  to  adopt  German  fashions,  to 
speak  Western  languages,  to  cultivate  sciences  and  useful  arts, 


1083-1725.]     PETER   THE   GREAT:   THE   REFORMS.  105 

to  discard  with  the  national  caftan  the  old  Russian  prejudices. 
At  Moscow,  the  City  of  the  Tsars,  foreigners  were  confined  in 
the  German  Sloboda ;  at  Saint  Petersburg,  the  City  of  the 
Emperors,  the  Russian  and  the  stranger  were  to  meet  and 
receive  mutual  impressions. 


106  HISTOKY  OF  RUSSIA.  [Chap.  IV. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

PETER  THE  GREAT:  LAST  YEARS. 

1709-1725. 

War  with  Turkey:  Treaty  of  the  Pruth  (1711).  —  Journey  to 
Paris  (1717). —  Peace  of  Nystad  (1721):  Conquests  on  the  Cas- 
pian.—  Family  Affairs:  Evdokia  ;  Trial  of  Alexis  (1718); 
Catherine. 


"WAR  WITH  TURKEY:  THE  TREATY  OP  THE  PRUTH. 

CHARLES  THE  TWELFTH,  who  bad  allowed  himself  to 
be  detained  in  Poland  during  the  five  years  that  followed 
Narva,  proceeded  after  the  battle  of  Poltava,  in  seventeen  hun- 
dred and  nine,  to  idle  away  five  years  more  at  Bender.  Peter 
turned  this  new  delay  to  advantage  with  as  much  energy  as 
the  former.  Charles's  Polish  king,  Leshtchinski,  was  obliged 
to  retire  into  Pomerania,  having  been  deserted  by  his  most 
powerful  friends,  who  had  heard  that  Augustus  was  about  to 
come  with  a  Saxon  army  of  fourteen  thousand  men,  and  that  the 
Tsar  himself  was  on  his  way  to  Poland.  Augustus  of  Saxony 
re-entered  Warsaw  after  making  a  reconciliation  with  Peter 
the  Great.  In  the  North  Peter  again  attempted  the  capture 
of  Vuiborg,  the  most  important  city  of  Karelia,  situated  on  the 
Gulf  of  Finland.  On  the  thirteenth  of  June  the  Swedish 
commander  was  forced  to  surrender,  and  the  garrison,  together 
with  nearly  all  the  inhabitants,  was  transplanted  to  Saint 
Petersburg.  In  September  the  whole  province,  including  the 
important  city  of  Kexholm,  had  submitted  to  the  Tsar.  On 
the  fourth  of  July  Riga  capitulated  after  a  long  and  costly 


1709-1725.]     PETER   THE    GREAT:  LAST   YEARS.  107 

siege  in  wliicli  both  armies  suffered  from  the  plague,  wliich  had 
broken  out.  After  the  loss  of  Riga  the  other  cities  of  Livonia 
were  unable  to  make  a  long  resistance.  Pernava  surrendered 
on  the  fourteenth  of  August,  and  on  the  twenty-ninth  of  Sep- 
tember Revel,  the  capital  of  Esthonia.  Thus  by  the  conquest 
of  Livonia,  Esthonia,  and  a  part  of  Finland,  Peter  gained  a 
stronger  hold  on  the  Baltic.  Owing  to  the  fact  that  Kurland 
was  a  State  subject  to  Poland,  he  was  unable  to  make  a  con- 
quest of  it ;  but  he  paved  the  way  for  its  union  with  Russia  by 
marrying  the  young  Duke,  Friedrich  Wilhelm,  nephew  of  the 
King  of  Prussia,  to  Anna  Ivanovna,  daughter  of  his  brother 
Ivan.  The  Duke  died  a  few  davs  after  the  weddino;.  Never- 
theless,  his  widow  took  up  her  residence  in  Mitava,  where  she 
lived  until  she  ascended  the  throne  of  Russia. 

The  agents  of  Sweden,  generals  Poniatovski  and  Pototski, 
the  friends  of  Stanislas  and  Charles,  Desaleurs,  ambassador  of 
Prance,  and  the  warlike  Khan  of  the  Tatars,  were  all  urging 
the  Divan  to  go  to  war.  Akhmet  the  Third  was  anxious  to 
recaptiu'e  Azof  In  August,  seventeen  hundred  and  ten,  the 
grand  vizier  gave  the  command  for  the  army  and  fleet  to  be 
put  on  a  war  basis.  On  the  twenty-first  of  November  war 
was  declared,  and  the  Russian  ambassador,  Tolstoi,  was  thrown 
in  the  Seven  Towers.  As  soon  as  Peter  learned  that  this  rup- 
ture of  the  peace  had  taken  place,  and  that  Baltazhi-Mahomet 
was  assembling  an  innnense  army  in  the  plains  of  Adrianople, 
he  ordered  Prince  Mikhail  Galitsuin  to  go  to  the  boundaries 
of  Moldavia  with  ten  regiments  of  dragoons  in  order  to  watch 
the  movements  of  the  Turks  and  Tatars.  Sheremetief  was 
commanded  to  report  from  Riga  in  Livonia,  with  twenty-two 
regiments  of  infantry,  Avhile  Dmitri  Galitsuin  kept  an  eye  on 
the  Zaporoshtsui  and  Prince  Romodonovski  drew  near  Putivl 
with  the  forces  at  his  command.  On  the  ei^-hth  of  March 
service  was  said  in  the  Uspienski  Soborat  Moscow,  and  public 
declaration  of  the  war  was  made  from  the  altar.  The  Tsar 
received  this  declaration  of  war  almost  with  joy  ;  the  whole  of 


108  HISTORY   OF  KUSSIA.  [Chap.  IV. 

Russia  trembled  with  gladness  at  the  thought  of  treading  in 
the  steps  of  its  ancient  princes,  of  marching  to  Tsargrad,  the 
"  Sovereign  City,"  of  freeing  the  Christians  of  the  East,  of  ex- 
terminating the  old  enemies  of  the  Slav  race,  and  of  eclipsing 
the  glory  of  Ivan  the  Terrible. 

On  the  seventeenth  of  jVIarch  Peter  took  his  departure  for 
Poland  together  with  Catherine,  whom  he  had  secretly  married 
in  seventeen  hundred  and  seven,  and  whom  now  he  acknowl- 
edofed  as  his  wife.  He  had  an  interview  with  Ausrustus,  who 
promised  him  aid  against  the  Turks  ;  but  without  waiting  for 
the  Polish  contingent  of  thirty  thousand  men,  he  hastened 
to  the  scene  of  action,  depending  more  upon  the  Princes 
of  Moldavia  and  Valakliia  than  on  the  King.  Konstantin 
Bessaraba,  Count  of  Brankovan,  had  been  for  twenty-two 
years  hospodar  of  Valakliia,  and  with  the  hope  of  securing 
the  princedom  to  his  family  he  promised  Peter  to  furnish 
him  provisions  and  men,  and  to  stir  up  a  revolt  among  the 
Christians  in  the  Turkish  dominions.  Peter  expected  still 
more  valuable  aid  from  Moldavia,  which  was  separated  from 
Poland  only  by  the  Dniester.  Dmitri  Kantemir,  whose  father 
had  been  hospodar  of  Moldavia,  just  before  the  declaration  of 
Avar  had  been  appointed  by  the  grand  vizier  to  the  same 
position,  with  a  promise  of  freedom  from  paying  tribute  and 
the  customary  gift  to  the  divan.  But  hardly  had  he  reached 
the  capital  when  the  gift  was  demanded  from  him.  He  then 
resolved  to  unite  with  the  Russians,  whose  star  seemed  to  be 
in  the  ascendant.  Accordingly,  on  the  twenty-fourth  of  April 
he  agreed  to  place  Moldavia  under  Russian  protection  and 
join  his  army  to  Peter's,  on  the  condition  of  being  kept  in  his 
princely  rights.  As  soon  as  Sheremetief,  with  his  army  of 
fifteen  thousand  men,  had  crossed  the  Dniester,  Kantemir 
judged  it  a  favorable  time  to  throw  off  the  mask.  By  a 
printed  proclamation  he  announced  his  treaty  with  the  Tsar, 
and  threatened  his  bo\ars  with  death  and  confiscation  if  they 
did  not  attach  themselves  to  the  Tsar's  army.     But  the  fear 


1709-1725.]     PETER  THE   GREAT:   LAST    YEARS.  109 

of  the  Turks  had  greater  influence  on  his  subjects  than  his 
threats  and  promises,  and  a  majority  of  the  nobles  hastened 
to  join  the  Turks,  carrying  witli  them  the  larger  part  of  the 
provisions  of  the  country.  The  Russian  army,  contrary  to 
their  usual  custom,  had  neglected  to  bring  supplies,  and  not 
more  than  a  week's  rations  were  at  their  command. 

Peter  drew  near  the  Dniester  and  held  a  council  of  war.  It 
was  the  opinion  of  the  German  generals  that  they  should 
secure  their  position  on  the  river,  where  they  had  easy  access 
into  Poland,  and  if  possible  capture  Bender,  where  Charles 
the  Twelfth  was  staying,  which  would  furnish  a  stronghold 
and  magazine  for  the  army.  They  reminded  Peter  of  the 
mistake  made  by  Charles  the  Twelfth  in  seventeen  hundred 
and  nine,  and  showed  him  the  danger  of  counting  on  the 
doubtful  help  of  these  barbarous  and  thinly  peopled  countries. 
But  the  brave  General  Ronne  of  Kurland,  in  whom  Peter 
had  the  fullest  confidence,  thought  that  the  only  step  worthy 
of  the  Tsar  was  to  press  on  through  the  deserts  of  Moldavia. 
The  Russian  generals  and  ministers  seconded  Ronne,  and 
Peter  decided  to  follow  the  advice  of  the  majority.  On  the 
twenty-seventh  of  June  he  crossed  the  river.  After  a  seven 
days'  march  through  a  desert  lacking  water  and  trees  and 
without  a  habitation,  they  reached  the  Pruth,  where  Kan- 
temir  joined  them  with  his  little  army.  Here  they  learned  of 
Brankovan's  defection.  Peter  was  so  incensed  that  he  was 
prevented  only  by  the  greatest  difficulty  from  killing  the  Vala- 
khian  messenger  on  the  spot.  JNleanwhile  the  Turkish  army 
was  approaching,  and  had  succeeded  in  throwing  two  bridges 
across  the  Danube.  General  Ronne,  in  attempting  to  atta(;k 
these  brido;es,  was  cut  off  from  the  main  division  of  the  Rus- 
sians.  Peter's  position  became  more  and  more  hazardous. 
Provisions  were  scarce,  as  well  as  provender  for  the  horses. 
The  locusts  had  eaten  the  grass  to  the  very  roots.  It  was 
decided  to  beat  a  retreat,  and  the  shortest  way  was  chosen 
between  the  mountains  and  the  river.     But  this  was  found  to 


no  HISTOKY   OF   EUSSIA.  [Chap.  IV. 

be  impassable,  owing  to  a  morass  that  occupied  the  width  of 
the  plain.  The  whole  army  came  together  again  on  the  night 
of  the  nineteenth  of  Jidy,  and  it  was  found  that  out  of  the 
thirty-eight  thousand  which  had  crossed  the  Dniester,  only 
twenty-four  thousand  answered  the  muster-roll.  The  march 
was  directed  to  a  clump  of  woodland  on  a  hill  which  would 
give  the  army  a  little  protection.  But  the  Tatar  Khan 
managed  to  invest  the  hill  before  the  Russians  reached  it. 
The  next  morning  the  Tatars  attacked  the  Russian  rear,  which 
was  guarded  by  the  Preobrazhenski  regiment.  In  steady 
conflict  they  marched  until  noon,  when  they  were  obliged  to 
stop  and  recover  from  the  effects  of  the  intense  heat  and  their 
M'eariness.  Meanwhile  the  whole  Turkish  and  Tatar  army, 
amounting  to  over  two  hundred  thousand,  had  assembled  in 
the  plain  of  Horste  Guesti.  The  grand  vizier,  Baltazhi-Ma- 
homet,  was  a  poor  soldier,  but  he  had  able  assistants  in  the 
Swedish  general,  Sparre,  and  in  Count  Poniatovski.  Charles 
had  kept  aAvay  from  the  Turkish  camp  through  his  dislike  at 
holding  a  subordinate  position.  On  the  evening  of  the  twen- 
tieth of  July,  just  before  sunset,  the  battle  was  renewed.  The 
Russians  thrice  repulsed  the  ferocious  attacks  of  the  Janissa- 
ries, and  more  than  seven  thousand  Turks  perished.  Night 
came  on  and  offered  little  consolation  to  the  weary  Russians. 
Poniatovski  advised  the  vizier  to  throw  up  an  embankment  and 
post  upon  it  all  the  cannon.  Five  hundred  would  have  suf- 
ficed to  annihilate  the  Russians.  Peter  seemed  irretrievably 
lost.  Sick  in  his  tent  and  alone,  he  gave  himself  up  to  the 
most  melancholy  forebodings.  A  moment  was  sufficient  to 
overthrow  the  work  of  his  life.  To  retreat  was  impossible. 
It  was  equally  impossible  to  remain  Avithout  provisions.  A 
council  of  war  was  held  in  Shafirof's  tent.  Catherine  was 
present.  It  was  determined  to  tempt  the  well-known  avarice 
of  the  grand  vizier.  Two  hundred  thousand  rubles  were 
collected,  and  Catherine  added  her  jewels.  Then  she  went  to 
Peter's  tent  and  told  him  the  determination  of  the  council. 


1709-1735.]     PETER  THE   GREAT:    LAST  YEARS.  HI 

He  consented  against  his  will,  and  the  ambassadors,  Shafirof 
at  their  head,  proceeded  to  the  Turkish  camp.  Baltazlii, 
attracted  by  the  sight  of  the  money  and  the  glittering 
jewels,  seemed  inclined  to  yield.  Peter  wrote  to  Shafirof 
to  accede  to  any  terms,  to  make  any  sacrifice  demanded  by 
the  Turks ;  to  restore  Azof,  Livonia,  even  Esthonia  and  Ka- 
relia, but  to  hold  fast  upon  Iiigria,  the  loss  of  which  would 
involve  that  of  the  new  capital.  He  commanded  the  envoys 
rather  to  sacrifice  even  Pskof,  and  besought  them  to  let  him 
know  that  very  day,  so  that  they  might  try  the  "  desperate  way  " 
if  negotiations  failed.  He  was  determined  under  those  circum- 
stances to  force  a  passage,  and  to  fight  to  the  last  man.  He 
had  already  written  to  the  senate  announcing  his  perilous 
condition,  and  commanding  them,  in  case  he  met  with  dis- 
aster, to  choose  from  their  number  the  one  most  worthy  to 
be  his  successor.  But  the  vizier  acceded  to  the  treaty,  and 
his  demands  were  smaller  than  were  anticipated  :  he  con- 
tented himself  with  the  restitution  of  Azof,  the  destruction 
of  the  fortresses  of  Taganrog,  Kamennov,  Saton,  and  others 
erected  on  the  Turkish  territory,  and  the  promise  that  Charles 
the  Twelfth  should  not  be  hindered  in  liis  return  to  Sweden, 
and  that  he  should  be  left  in  peace  when  he  returned  to  his 
own  kingdom;  he  also  demanded  that  Kantemir  should  be  given 
into  his  hands.  But  this  demand  Peter  managed  not  to  satisfy. 
Such  was  the  celebrated  Treaty  of  the  Pruth,  or  of  Hush,  as 
it  was  called  from  the  little  city  near  by.  It  caused  univer- 
sal joy  in  tlie  Russian  army,  for  few  had  expected  such  a  result. 
The  Count  de  Lion  wrote  :  "  If  in  the  morning  any  one  had  told 
us  that  peace  would  come  about  in  such  a  manner,  everybody 
would  have  considered  him  a  visionary,  a  lunatic,  a  scatter- 
brain,  who  had  the  audacity  to  encourage  us  with  a  hope  in 
which  there  was  certainly  not  the  least  reason  to  indul2;e. 
And  I  remember  that  after  General  Janus's  flag  of  truce  had 
departed  with  the  marshal's  letter,  this  general  said  to  us,  as 
we  were  returning  to  our  places,  that  the  man  who  had  in- 


112  HISTORY   OF   EUSSIA.  [Chap.  IV. 

diiced  his  Tsarian  majesty  to  undertake  this  business  ought  to 
be  considered  the  most  ridiculous,  the  most  fooUsh  person  on 
earth ;  but  that  if  the  grand  vizier  accepted  the  offer  made 
him,  in  the  situation  in  which  we  Avere,  lie  would  give  the 
grand  vizier  the  precedence.  God  granted  that  the  general  of 
that  infidel  army  was  blinded  by  the  glitter  of  two  hundred 
thousand  ducats,  so  that  so  large  a  number  of  excellent  peo])le 
in  this  army  were  saved  when  they  were  actually  at  the  mercy 
of  the  Turks."  Peter  the  Great  never  recovered  from  the  sad- 
ness which  the  reverses  in  this  war  caused  him, —  to  have  come 
as  deliverer  of  the  Christian  world  and  to  be  forced  to  capitu- 
late ;  to  surrender  Azof,  his  first  conquest ;  to  annihilate  his 
fleet  on  the  Black  Sea,  which  had  cost  him  so  many  efforts  ! 
But  he  wrote  to  the  senate  that,  although  the  loss  of  the  cities 
■which  had  cost  so  much  labor  and  treasure  was,  indeed,  griev- 
ous to  him,  yet  he  could  see  wherein  advantage  might  be  the 
idtimate  result.  He  waited,  and  took  his  revenge  on  another 
side. 


JOURNEY  TO  PARIS.  — PEA.CE  OP  NYSTAD.  -  CON- 
QUESTS ON  THE  CASPIAN. 

In  seventeen  hundred  and  twelve  and  seventeen  hundred 
and  thirteen,  wdiile  France  was  passing  through  a  supreme 
crisis  in  the  war  of  the  Spanish  Succession,  the  Russians,  with 
their  Danish  and  Saxon  allies,  Avere  expelling  the  Swedes  from 
Pomerania.  In  May,  seventeen  hundred  and  thirteen,  a  fleet 
of  two  hundred  Russian  ships,  commanded  by  Apraxin,  with 
Peter  for  vice-admiral,  left  the  Neva,  took  Helsingfors  and  Abo, 
capital  of  Finland,  the  library  of  Avhich  was  sent  to  Saint 
Petersburg,  and  disembarked  troops  who  defeated  the  Swedes 
at  Tammersfors.  The  following  year  the  Russians  again  de- 
feated the  enemy's  fleet  at  Hankiil,  and  occupied  the  isles  of 
Aland.  Even  Stockholm  was  threatened,  the  Russians  not 
being  more  than  fifteen  miles  from  the  Swedish  capital.     The 


1709-1725.]     PETEE  THE   GREAT:   LAST   YEARS.  113 

capture  of  Nyslott  completed,  tlie  conquest  of  Finland,  and 
Charles  the  Twelfth,  who  hastened  from  Bender,  could  save 
neither  Stralsund  nor  Vismar,  After  long  hesitation  the  King 
of  Prussia  had  joined  his  enemies,  and  the  last  Swedish  for- 
tresses in  Pomerania  had  fallen.  The  Elector  of  Hanover, 
King  of  England,  also  turned  against  him,  and  took  Verden, 
a  possession  of  Charles  on  the  Weser.  With  Sweden  deprived 
of  its  provinces  in  the  German  Empire,  the  results  of  the  Treaty 
of  Westphalia  were  imperilled.  The  war  in  the  North,  for- 
merly localized  in  the  eastern  Baltic,  became  a  European  war, 
and  threatened  the  equilibrium  of  the  Continent.  Russian 
armies,  for  the  first  time,  poured  into  Northern  Germany. 
Peter,  who  had  married  one  of  his  nieces  to  the  Duke  of  Kur- 
land,  found  a  husband  for  the  otlier,  Ekaterina  Ivanovna,  in 
the  Duke  of  Mecklenburg,  and  lent  his  support  to  help  this 
prince  to  reduce  his  nobility  to  obedience.  North  Germany 
seemed  ready  to  fall  under  the  Muscovite  yoke,  as  in  the  seven- 
teenth century  it  had  passed  under  the  Swedish  rule.  The 
allies  of  the  Tsar  began  to  fear  his  ambition.  The  Mecklen- 
burg nobles  took  their  revenge  by  everywhere  stirring  up  ene- 
mies against  him.  Bernsdorff  induced  George  of  Hanover  to 
break  off  his  alHance  with  the  Tsar,  and  two  other  JVIecklen- 
burgers  obtained  the  promise  of  the  King  of  Denmark  to  close 
the  gates  of  Vismar  on  Peter.  Peter  felt  that  he  also  must 
find  support,  and,  as  the  question  had  now  become  European, 
must  seek  European  allies.  It  was  at  this  juncture  that  Baron 
Gortz  undertook  to  reconcile  him  with  Charles  the  Twelfth, 
whose  courage  was  to  be  used  to  overthrow  the  King  of  Eng- 
land, and  to  replace  the  Stuart  dynasty  on  the  throne.  Peter 
wished,  moreover,  to  enter  into  relations  with  France.  In  sev- 
enteen hundred  and  eleven  he  had  sent  Gregory  Volkof  to 
Louis  the  Fourteenth,  to  ask  his  mediation,  but  the  Grand 
Monarque  thought  himself  too  deeply  involved  with  Sweden, 
though  Charles  had  but  scantily  fulfilled  his  own  obligations. 
After  the  death  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth  the  Duke  of  Orleans 


114  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  IV. 

became  Regent.  Peter  decided  to  visit  Versailles,  and  Prince 
Kurakin,  his  agent  at  the  Court  of  Prance,  assured  him  of  the 
good-will  of  the  Duke.  The  Tsar  had,  therefore,  grounds  to 
hope  for  the  conclusion  of  a  close  alliance  with  a  powerful 
kingdom,  and  perhaps  to  look  forward  to  the  marriage  of  his 
daughter  Elisabeth  with  the  joung  King  Louis  the  Pifteenth. 
The  circumstances  under  which  Peter  made  his  second  journey 
to  the  West  were  all  unlike  those  of  his  former  tour.  He  was 
110  longer  the  young  prince,  only  half  civilized,  master  of  a 
nearly  unknown  State  in  Eastern  Europe,  but  the  conqueror 
of  Poltava  and  of  Hankul,  the  master  of  the  Baltic  and  North- 
ern Germany,  the  reformer  of  a  numerous  people,  the  founder 
of  a  new  capital  and  a  new  empire,  the  head  of  a  great  Euro- 
pean nation. 

"  This  monarch,"  says  Saint  Simon,  "  astonished  Paris  by 
his  extreme  curiosity  on  all  points  of  government,  commerce, 
education,  and  police,  —  a  curiosity  which  disdained  nothing, 
but  probed  everything.  All  his  conduct  displayed  the  breadth 
of  his  views  and  the  acuteness  of  his  reasoning.  Plis  manner 
was  at  once  the  most  majestic,  the  proudest,  the  most  sustained, 
and  at  the  same  time  the  least  embarrassing.  He  had  the  sort 
of  familiarity  that  springs  from  boundless  liberty,  but  he  was 
not  exempt  from  a  trace  of  the  old-world  barbarism  of  his 
country,  which  made  him  abrupt  and  even  uncourteous,  and 
with  nothing  certain  about  his  wishes  but  the  fact  that  not 
one  of  them  was  to  be  contradicted.  His  habits  at  meals 
Avere  rough ;  the  revelry  that  followed  was  even  more  inde- 
cent. He  seldom  tried  to  hide  in  his  establishment  the  free- 
dom and  the  self-will  of  a  king.  His  love  of  unrestrained  sight- 
seemg,  his  dislike  of  being  made  a  spectacle,  his  habit  of 
liberty  for  which  he  was  accountable  to  none,  made  him  prefer 
hired  carriages,  even  fiacres.  He  would  jump  into  the  first 
carriage  he  met  with,  without  caring  to  whom  it  belonged, 
and  have  himself  driven  about  the  town  or  beyond  the  walls. 
He  was  a  very  tall  man,  well  made,  though   rather  thin,  his 


1709-1735.]     PETER  THE    GREAT:    LAST   YEARS.  115 

face  somewhat  round,  with  a  high  forehead,  beautiful  eye- 
brows, a  short  nose,  thick  at  the  end  ;  his  hps  were  rather 
thick,  his  skin  brown  and  ruddy.  He  had  splendid  eyes, 
large,  black,  piercing,  and  wide-awake ;  his  expression  was 
dignified  and  gracious  when  he  liked,  but  often  wild  and 
stern  ;  his  eyes  and  his  whole  face  were  distorted  by  an  occa- 
sional twitch  that  was  very  unpleasant.  It  lasted  only  a  mo- 
ment, and  gave  him  a  haggard  and  terrible  look  till  he  was 
himself  again.  His  air  expressed  intellect,  thoughtfulness,  and 
greatness,  and  had  a  certain  grace  about  it.  He  wore  a  linen 
collar,  a  round  peruke,  brown  and  unpowdered,  which  did  not 
reach  his  shoulders ;  a  brown,  close-fitting  coat,  with  gold 
buttons,  a  vest,  breeclies,  stockings,  and  neither  gloves  nor 
cuffs  ;  the  star  of  his  order  on  his  coat,  and  the  ribbon  under- 
neath it ;  his  coat  was  often  entirely  unbuttoned,  his  hat  lay  on 
the  table,  and  never  on  his  head,  even  out  of  doors.  In  this 
simplicity,  however  shabby  might  be  his  carriage  or  scanty  his 
retinue,  his  natural  air  of  greatness  could  not  be  mistaken." 

Peter  visited  both  the  Regent  and  the  King,  took  Louis  the 
Fifteenth  in  his  arms,  to  the  great  consternation  of  the  court- 
iers, and  wrote  to  his  wife  Catherine,  who  this  time  did  not 
accompany  him  :  "  The  little  king  is  scarcely  taller  than  our 
dwarf  Loaki ;  his  face  and  figure  are  distinguished,  and  he  is 
tolerably  intelligent  for  his  age."  The  Tsar  despised  all  that 
was  merely  fashionable  and  unproductive  luxury,  and  occupied 
himself  entirely  with  government,  commerce,  science,  and  mili- 
tary affairs.  He  neglected  to  call  on  the  princes  of  the  blood, 
but  entered  the  shops  of  coach-builders  and  goldsmiths.  He 
tasted  the  soup  of  the  Invalides,  drank  their  health,  struck 
them  on  the  shoulder,  and  treated  them  as  comrades.  The 
Gobelins,  the  Observatory,  the  King's  garden,  the  collection 
of  plans  in  relief  of  fortified  places,  the  works  of  the  Pont 
Tournant,  and  the  machine  at  Marly,  for  carrying  water  across 
the  Seine  to  Versailles,  captivated  his  attention.  A  gold  medal 
was  struck  for  him  at  the  Mint  with  his  own  effigy  and  the 


116  HISTORY   OF  EUSSIA.  [Chap.  IV. 

motto  "  Vires  acquirit  euiido."  He  was  present  at  a  meeting 
of  the  Academy  of  Sciences,  whicli  elected  him  a  member,  and 
he  corrected  with  his  own  hand  a  map  of  his  dominions  which 
was  shown  to  him.  He  embraced  a  bust  of  Richelieu  at  the 
Sorbonne,  and  went  to  see  Madame  de  Maintenon  as  a  relic  of 
the  great  reign  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth.  She  was  confined  to 
her  bed,  but  Peter  pulled  aside  the  curtains  and  stood  gazing 
at  her  for  some  time.  Neither  said  a  word,  and  Madame 
de  Maintenon  was  very  indignant,  but  unable  to  have  her  re- 
venge. 

Things  did  not  run  quite  as  smoothly  as  he  washed  in  the 
matter  which  had  chiefly  brought  him  to  France.  He  was  in 
search  of  an  ally  against  George  the  First ;  but  the  English 
alliance  was  then  the  corner-stone  of  the  French  foreign  pol- 
icy. "  The  Tsar,"  says  Saint  Simon,  "  had  an  intense  desire 
to  unite  himself  with  France.  Nothing  could  have  been  better 
for  our  commerce,  or  for  our  position  with  regard  to  Germany, 
the  North,  and  the  whole  of  Europe.  Peter  held  England  in 
check  by  its  fears  for  its  commerce,  and  King  George  by  his 
fears  for  his  German  territories.     He  made  Holland  treat  him 

with  respect,  and  kept  the  Emperor  in  great  order No 

one  can  deny  that  he  made  a  grand  figure  both  in  Europe  and 
Asia,  and  that  France  would  have  gained  enormously  by  an 

alliance  with  him We  repented  long  ago  of  our  fatal 

infatuation  for  England,  and  our  silly  contempt  for  Russia." 

Notwithstanding  the  mad  confidence  of  the  Regent  in  the 
Abbe  Dubois,  the  plenipotentiaries  of  Peter  the  Great  con- 
cluded at  Amsterdam,  in  seventeen  hundred  and  seventeen, 
after  the  return  of  the  Tsar  to  his  dominions,  a  treaty  of  com- 
merce with  France.  The  two  Powers,  now  joined  by  Prussia, 
declared  that  they  specially  united  to  guarantee  the  Treaty  of 
Utrecht,  and  the  eventual  peace  of  the  North  ;  they  laid  down 
the  basis  of  a  defensive  alliance,  the  ways  and  means  of  which 
were  afterwards  to  be  considered.  Peter,  later  in  the  same 
vear,  found  himself  somewhat  compromised  in  the  plans  of 


i7G9-1725.]     PETEll  THE   GREAT:   LAST  YEAES.  117 

Gortz  and  Cardinal  Alberoni  of  Spain,  wliicli  caused  a  coolness 
between  them.  A  regular  communication  between  the  two 
countries  was,  however,  inaugurated.  First  Kurakin  and  then 
Dolgoruki  were  nominated  ambassadors  at  Paris,  wliile  Cam- 
predon  represented  France  at  Saint  Petersburg.  More  than 
once  negotiations  were  set  on  foot  for  Elisabeth's  marriage, 
sometimes  with  Louis  the  Fifteenth,  sometimes  with  the  Duke 
cf  Bourbon,  or  some  other  French  prince.  France  lent  its 
good  offices  to  Russia,  in  the  matter  of  peace  with  Sweden. 

Gortz  was  on  the  point  of  reconciling  Peter  with  Charles, 
and  a  congress  had  already  opened  in  May  in  the  isles  of  Aland, 
between  Bruce  and  Ostermann  on  the  one  hand  and  Gortz  and 
Gyllenburg  on  the  other,  when  the  King  of  Sweden  was  killed 
in  Norway,  in  December,  seventeen  hundred  and  eigliteen. 
An  aristocratic  reaction  broke  out  at  Stockliolm :  Charles 
Frederic  of  Holstein-Gottorp,  nephew  of  Charles  the  Twelfth, 
Avas  excluded  from  the  throne,  and  the  crown  was  offered  to 
the  youngest  sister  of  the  late  king,  Ulrica-Eleonora,  wife  of 
F^rederic  of  Hesse-Cassel,  who  was  regarded  as  more  phable. 
An  aristocratic  constitution  was  established  which  deprived 
the  crown  of  nearly  all  its  prerogatives,  and  left  Sweden  a  prey 
for  fifty-three  years  to  anarchy  and  insignificance.  Authority 
passed  into  the  hands  of  a  diet  composed  of  the  deputies  of 
the  four  orders,  the  nobles,  clergy,  citizens,  and  peasants,  but 
in  which  the  nobles  had  a  decided  majority.  Gortz  was  re- 
called to  Stockholm  and  condemned  to  death,  and  his  policy 
was  abandoned.  The  Diet  revived,  on  the  contrary,  the  alli- 
ance with  Hanover,  and  resolved  to  continue  the  war  with 
Russia,  with  the  probable  support  of  the  English  fleet.  Peter 
accepted  the  challenge,  and  waged  with  his  enemies  a  war  of 
extermination.  In  seventeen  hundred  and  nineteen  his  army 
landed  on  the  shores  of  Sweden  itself,  and  burned  two  towns 
and  a  hundred  and  twenty-nine  villages.  Apraxin  extended 
his  ravages  to  within  seven  miles  of  Stockholm.  The  booty 
lie  collected  was  estimated  at  one  million  rubles,  and  twelve 


lis  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  IV. 

times  as  much  was  destroyed.  When  they  withdrew,  a  piece 
of  forest  forty  miles  long  was  set  on  fire,  by  the  burning  of 
which  the  copper  and  iron  mines  situated  in  it  became  useless 
for  many  years.  In  seventeen  hundred  and  twenty  the  devas- 
tation recommenced,  in  the  very  presence  of  the  English  fleet, 
which  did  not  dare  to  pursue  the  Russians  into  the  recesses  of 
the  Swedish  coast.  In  seventeen  hundred  and  twenty-one -the 
Diet  decided  to  treat.  Peter  kept  Livonia,  Esthonia,  Ingria. 
part  of  Finland,  and  Karelia.  Such  was  the  Peace  of  Nystad, 
which  avenged  Ivan  the  Terrible  and  Alexis  Mikhailovitch. 

When  the  Tsar  felt  the  weight  of  this  twenty-two  years' 
war  lifted  from  his  shoulders,  he  returned  to  Saint  Petersburg 
to  announce  the  happy  news  of  peace  to  his  people,  and, 
mounted  on  a  platform,  he  drank  to  the  health  of  his  subjects. 
A  whole  week  was  given  up  to  fetes  and  mascpierades.  Peter, 
in  his  joy,  burned  twelve  thousand  rubles'  worth  of  powder, 
put  on  a  fancy  dress,  danced  on  the  table,  and  sang  songs. 
The  senate  united  with  the  Holy  Synod  in  a  great  council, 
decreed  to  the  Tsar  the  titles  of  "  Great,  of  the  Eather  of  his 
Country,  and  of  Emperor  of  all  the  Russias,"  and  throughout 
the  whole  city  thousands  of  voices  cried,  "  Long  live  the 
Eather  of  his  Country,  the  Emperor,  Peter  the  Great !  "  It 
was  thus  that  the  son  of  Alexis  became,  according  to  the 
expression  of  the  popular  songs,  "  the  fii'st  emperor  of  the 
country."  Eeofan  Prokopovitch  preached  one  of  his  most 
beautiful  sermons  on  this  occasion. 

Peter's  great  desire  was  to  make  Russia  the  centre  of  com- 
munication between  Asia  and  Europe.  He  had  conquered 
the  shores  of  the  Baltic,  but  it  was  necessary  that  he  should 
find  an  equivalent  for  Azof  and  throw  open  at  least  one  of 
the  seas  of  the  East.  Persia,  mistress  of  the  Caspian,  Avas 
then  a  prey  to  anarchy  under  a  weak  prince,  who  was  attacked 
by  rebels  on  all  sides.  Russian  merchants  had  been  robbed, 
and  Peter  took  advantage  of  this  pretext  for  war  to  seize  Der- 
bend,  the  key  of  Persia,  and  he  himself  commanded  the  ex- 


i70S-1725.]     PETER   THE   GREAT:   LAST   YEARS.  119 

peclition  which  descended  the  Volga,  from  Nijni  to  Astrakhan, 
in  seventeen  hundred  and  twenty-two.  The  operations  still 
continued  after  his  departure :  the  Russians  took  13aku,  the 
principal  city  of  Shirvan,  interfered  in  the  internal  affairs  of 
Persia,  promised  help  to  the  Shah  against  his  enemies,  and 
occupied  Daghestan,  GhilaUj  and  Mazanderan,  with  Resht  and 
Asterabad. 

FAMILY  AFFAIRS:   EVDOKIA ;   TRIAL   OF  ALEXIS; 
CATHERINE. 

Thfi  last  years  of  Peter  the  Great  were  saddened  by  terrible 
domestic  trasredies.  He  had  been  married,  at  the  ase  of 
seventeen,  to  Evdokia  Lapukhin,  the  daughter  of  a  very  con- 
servative family.  As  she  shared  the  views  of  her  relations, 
Peter  soon  began  to  hate  her.  After  the  capture  of  Azof  he 
signified  that  he  did  not  wish  on  his  return  to  find  her  at  the 
palace,  and  she  was  obliged  to  retire  to  the  Pokrovski  Monas- 
tery at  Susdal.  Soon  afterwards  he  obtained  a  divorce,  in 
order  to  marry  Catherine.  Banished  and  divorced,  Evdokia 
still  retained  power.  In  the  eyes  of  the  people,  and  of  a 
large  part  of  the  clergy,  she  remained  the  Tsar's  only  lawful 
wife ;  she  was  the  mother  of  the  Tsar's  only  son,  Alexis,  over 
whose  mind  and  character  she  had,  during  the  Tsar's  frequent 
absences,  exercised  the  most  fatal  influence.  After  the  dis- 
missal of  Evdokia,  Peter  paid  more  attention  to  the  education 
of  his  heir,  who  was  then  eight  years  old,  and  gave  him 
foreign  masters.  It  was  too  late  ;  Alexis  was  already  a  young 
man.  Narrow-minded,  indolent,  lazy,  feeble,  and  obstinate, 
the  son  of  the  reformer  was  only  a  Lapukhin.  While  Peter 
was  exposing  himself  on  battle-fields  in  Einlaiid,  Lithu- 
ania, and  the  Ukraina,  Alexis  was  surrounded  by  monks, 
devotees,  and  visionaries,  and  reading  his  Bible  and  theologi- 
cal works  over  and  over  again.  His  Court  Avas  formed  of 
those  who  disparaged  and  abused  the  reforms  and  the  new 
laws.     Against  his  own   wishes,  he  was  forced  in  October, 


120  HISTORY   OF  RUSSIA.  [Cha^p,  IY. 

seventeen  hundred  and  eleven,  to  marry  Charlotte  of  Bruns-= 
wick  at  Torgau,  but  consoled  himself  with  the  idea  that  he 
would  one  day  have  the  heads  of  the  authors  of  the  marriage. 
He  hated  her  because  she  was  a  foreigner  and  a  heretic. 
When  his  confidant  tried  to  make  him  fear  that  he  would 
only  alienate  the  nobles,  "  I  spit  upon  them,"  he  replied ; 
"  the  people  are  on  my  side.  When  my  father  dies,  I  shall 
have  only  to  say  a  word  in  the  ear  of  the  archbishops,  who 
will  tell  their  priests,  who  will  whisper  it  to  their  parishioners, 
and  I  shall  be  made  Tsar,  even  were  it  in  spite  of  myself." 
During  his  travels  in  Germany  he  would  learn  nothing,  he 
wounded  his  hand  that  he  might  not  be  obliged  to  draw,  and 
alleged  his  feeble  health  as  an  excuse  for  living  in  idleness. 
Peter  tried  to  bring  him  to  reason.  "  Disquiet  for  the  future 
destroys  the  joy  caused  by  our  present  successes,  for  I  see  that 
you  despise  all  that  can  make  you  worthy  to  reign  after  me. 
Your  incapacity  I  call  rebellion,  for  you  cannot  excuse  your- 
self on  the  ground  of  feebleness  of  mind  and  Aveakness  of 
health.  We  have  struggled  from  our  former  obscurity  only 
through  the  toils  of  war,  which  has  taught  other  nations  to 
know  and  respect  us,  and  yet  you  will  not  even  hear  of  mili- 
tary exercises.  I,  a  man,  am  subject  to  death  ;  to  whom  shall 
I  leave  what  I  have  established  and  accomplished  ?  If  you  do 
not  alter  your  conduct,  know  that  I  shall  deprive  you  of  my 
succession.  I  have  not  spared,  and  I  shall  not  spare,  my 
own  life  for  my  country  and  my  people ;  do  you  think  that  I 
shall  spnre  yours  ?  Better  a  worthy  stranger  than  a  good- 
for-nothing  relation."  Alexis  still  persisted  that  he  had  neither 
health  nor  memory,  and  would  prefer  to  become  a  monk.  Peter 
then  gave  him  six  months'  time  in  which  to  decide  whether 
he  would  obey  him  or  go  into  a  convent.  His  confidant, 
Kikin,  advised  him  to  dissemble,  and  to  allow  himself  to  be 
shut  up  in  a  convent.  "  You  can  come  out  of  it,"  he  said  ; 
"  they  do  not  nail  the  cowl  to  your  head."  During  his  father's 
travels  in  the  West  the  Tsarevitch  fled  to  Germany  with  his 


1709-1725.]     PETER  THE   GREAT:    LAST   YEARS.  121 

mistress,  the  Finland  serf  Afrosinia.  He  went  to  the  court  of 
Vienna,  whicli  promised  to  provide  him  with  a  secret  and 
secure  asyhmi.  It  was  in  this  manner  that  he  was  succes- 
sively confined  in  the  castle  of  Ehrenberg,  in  the  Tyrol,  and 
of  Sant'  Elmo,  near  Naples.  His  father's  agents,  who  had 
instantly  started  in  pursuit,  finally  succeeded  in  tracing  him, 
and  Tolstoi  obtained  an  interview  with  Alexis,  who  was  as- 
sured of  pardon,  and  persuaded  to  return  to  Moscow.  The 
Tsar  immediately  assembled  the  three  orders  at  the  Kreml, 
arraigned  the  prisoner  before  it,  and  obliged  him  to  sign  a  for- 
mal renunciation  of  the  crown.  Alexis  had  also  to  denounce 
his  accomplices,  and  in  the  course  of  the  interrogation  some 
terrible  disclosures  were  made  to  Peter.  His  son  was  the 
centre  of  a  permanent  conspiracy  against  his  reforms,  and  was 
the  hope  of  all  who  after  his  death  would  seek  to  destroy  his 
work.  If  Alexis  had  consented  to  enter  the  cloister,  it  was  in 
the  expectation  of  one  day  leaving  it ;  in  the  same  way  his 
renunciation  of  the  throne  could  not  have  been  sincere :  he 
did  not  belong  to  himself,  he  belonged  to  the  enemies  of  his 
father,  who  would  understand  how  to  absolve  him  from  his 
vows.  Peter  learned,  among  other  things,  that  Alexis  had 
solicited  at  Vienna  the  armed  protection  of  the  Emperor,  that 
he  had  intrigued  with  Sweden,  and  that,  on  the  occasion  of  a 
sedition  in  the  Russian  army  of  Mecklenburg,  he  entered  into 
relations  with  the  leaders,  and  only  awaited  a  letter  to  hasten 
to  the  camp.  He  had  longed  for  the  death  of  his  father,  and 
his  confessor,  Varlaam,  had  said,  "  We  all  desire  it."  The 
threads  of  the  plot  between  the  palace  of  the  Tsarevitch  and 
the  convent  of  the  divorced  Tsaritsa  were  soon  grasped.  Ev- 
dokia  was  treated,  not  as  a  nun,  but  as  a  Tsaritsa  ;  she  had 
her  court  of  malcontents,  wore  a  secular  costume,  was  men- 
tioned in  the  prayers  like  a  sovereign.  Dosife'i,  Archbishop 
of  Rostof,  had  predicted  to  her  the  approaching  death  of  the 
Tsar,  and  to  hasten  it  the  Archimandrite  Peter  made  hundreds 
of  prostrations  before  the  holy  images.     General  Glebof,  who 


122  HISTOKY   OF    RUSSIA.  [Chap.  IV. 

had  established  a  correspondence  in  cipher  with  the  Tsaritsa, 
avowed  tliat  he  was  her  lover,  and  that  he  was  to  marrv  her 
after  the  death  of  the  Tsar.  Her  relations,  her  brother  Avraani 
Lapiikhin  among  others,  were  concerned  in  these  intrigues  and 
hopes.  Peter  crushed  with  cruel  penalties  this  nest  of  con- 
spirators. Glebof  was  impaled,  Dosife'i  broken  on  the  Avheel, 
Lapukhin  tortured  and  beheaded ;  thirty  people  were  pnt  to 
death  or  exiled ;  Evdokia  was  whipped  and  confined  in  New 
Ladoga.  Peter's  own  sister  Maria,  who  was  also  implicated, 
was  imprisoned  in  Schliisselburg.  The  affair  of  the  Tsarevitch 
had  changed  its  character  after  all  these  revelations  ;  there 
could  now  be  no  question  of  clemency.  Peter  had  no  longer 
to  deal  with  a  lazy  and  disobedient  son,  but  with  a  traitor  who 
had  become  the  chief  of  his  enemies  wnthin  ar.d  the  ally  ot 
those  without,  and  who  had  sought  foreign  aid.  Peter  liad  to 
choose  between  his  son  and  his  reforms,  for  Alexis  had  openly 
promised  to  abandon  Saint  Petersburg,  the  navy,  the  Swedish 
coiKpiests,  and  to  return  to  Moscow.  There  was  no  hope  now 
of  putting  him  in  a  condition  where  he  would  be  liarndcss 
after  the  death  of  his  father.  Alexis  knew  they  could  not  "  nail 
the  cowl  on  his  head,"  and  the  seclusion  of  a  convent  had  not 
prevented  Evdokia  from  indulging  in  secular  hopes.  Hence- 
forth Alexis  found  in  his  father  only  an  inexorable  judge.  Twice 
he  suiTered  the  knout ;  and  a  tribunal  composed  of  the  highest 
oificials  of  the  State  condemned  him  to  death.  The  difficulty 
seemed  to  lie  in  the  execution  of  the  sentence  ;  but  two  days 
after  the  sentence  was  passed  it  became  known  that  he  had 
ceased  to  live.  Divers  rumors  as  to  the  manner  of  his  death 
were  circulated  in  the  Memoirs  of  the  time :  some  say  it  Avas 
caused  by  a  sudden  apoplexy,  or  a  disease  of  the  bowels,  aris- 
ing from  deep  emotion ;  some  that  he  was  beheaded  with  an 
axe,  struck  down  with  a  club,  suffocated  under  cushions,  stran- 
gled with  his  cravat ;  some  that  he  was  put  to  death  by  poison  ; 
others  that  his  veins  were  opened.  All  that  is  certain  is,  that 
on  the  morning  of  the  twenty-seventh  of  June,  seventeen  hun- 


1700-17:35.]     PETER   THE    GREAT:    LAST   YEARS.  123 

dred  and  eighteen  the  Tsar  compelled  his  son  to  appear  be- 
fore a  commission  of  nine  of  the  greatest  men  of  the  State. 
About  what  then  took  place  these  nine  men  were  forever 
silent ;  but  it  seems  now  to  have  been  ascertained  that  in 
order  to  wring  fresh  confessions  from  the  Tsarevitch  the 
knout  was  again  applied  to  him,  and  that  he  died  from  the 
consequences  of  the  torture. 

Peter  had  already  another  family.  In  seventeen  hundred 
and  two,  at  the  sack  of  Marienburg,  the  Russians  had  made 
prisoner  a  young  girl,  about  whose  condition,  origin,  and 
nationality  original  authorities  differ.  It  seems  most  probable 
that  she  was  a  Livonian,  the  natural  daughter  of  a  gentle- 
man named  Von  Rosen,  whose  mother  afterwards  married  a 
serf,  Skavronski ;  that  she  Avas  a  privileged  servant  at  the 
house  of  the  pastor  Gliick,  and  that  she  had  been  betrothed  to 
a  Swedish  dragoon.  It  was  thus  that  in  obscurity  and  dis- 
honor her  imperial  destiny  began.  Though  ignorant  and 
completely  illiterate,  she  fascinated  the  Tsar  by  the  vivacity  of 
her  mind,  the  correctness  of  her  judgment,  and  something  free 
and  adventurous  about  her  which  contrasted  with  the  manners 
of  the  Russian  terem,  and  marked  out  this  Lutheran  slave  as 
the  future  Empress  of  Russia.  Their  marriage,  secretly  con- 
tracted, received  a  final  consecration  under  the  fire  of  the  Otto- 
man batteries  on  the  Pruth.  In  memory  of  the  services  then 
rendered  by  Catherine  to  the  Tsar  and  to  the  country,  Peter 
founded  the  Order  "  for  love  and  fidelity,"  and  solemnly 
married  her  in  seventeen  hundred  and  twelve.  He  did  not, 
however,  dare  to  take  her  with  him  in  his  journey  to  France. 
The  contrast  would  have  been  too  obvious  at  Versailles  be- 
tween the  ladies  of  the  proud  Prench  nobility  and  this  foreign 
slave ;  between  the  cultivated  wit  of  a  Sevigne  and  a  Deffand 
and  this  empress  who  could  not  sign  her  name  ;  between  the 
refinements  of  the  Prench  fine  ladies  and  the  awkward  wench 
described  by  the  Margravine  of  Baireuth. 

"  The  Tsaritsa,"  says  the  German  princess,  "  was  small  and 


124  KISTOKY   OF   EUSSIA.  [Chap.  IV. 

clumsily  made,  very  much  tanned,  and  without  either  grace 
or  an  air  of  distinction.  You  had  only  to  see  her  to  know 
that  she  was  low-born.  Prom  her  usual  costume  you  would 
have  taken  her  for  a  German  comedian.  Her  dress  had  been 
bought  at  a  second-hand  shop ;  it  was  very  old-fashioned,  and 
covered  with  silver  and  dirt.  She  had  a  dozen  orders,  and  as 
many  portraits  of  saints  or  reliquaries,  fastened  doAvn  all  her 
dress,  in  such  a  way  that  when  she  walked  you  would  have 
thought  by  the  jingling  that  a  mule  was  passing."  In  seven- 
teen hundred  and  twenty-one  Peter  promulgated  the  cele- 
brated edict  which  recognized  the  I'ight  of  the  Russian  sover- 
eign to  nominate  his  successor,  tluis  derogating  from  the 
hereditary  principle  which  seems  the  very  essence  of  the  mon- 
archy. Peter  invoked  the  precedent  of  Ivan  the  Great,  and 
the  "  Absalom  revolt  "  of  Alexis.  To  justify  this  measure  of 
the  Tsar,  Peofan  Prokopovitch  wrote  his  book,  called  Pravda 
voli  vionarshci,  or  "  The  Law  of  the  Monarch's  Will."  By 
Catherine  Peter  had  had  two  sons,  Peter  and  Pavel,  who  died 
when  children,  and  two  daughters,  —  Anna,  married  to  the 
Duke  of  Holstein,  and  Elisabeth,  who  became  Tsaritsa.  Besides 
these,  Alexis  had  left  a  son  by  Charlotte  of  Brunswick,  who 
was  then  named  last  in  the  public  prayers,  and  afterwards  be- 
came Peter  the  Second.  In  JMay,  seventeen  hundred  and 
twenty-four,  Peter  the  Great  published  a  manifesto,  recalling 
the  services  Catherine  had  rendered,  and  solemnly  crowned 
her  Empress.  This  was  the  culmination  of  her  strange  des- 
tiny. Soon  it  began  to  change ;  the  Emperor  thought  that  he 
had  discovered  proofs  of  her  infidelity,  and  spoke  of  repudi- 
ating her.  At  all  events,  he  had  not  as  yet  exercised  the  right 
of  naming  his  successor,  claimed  two  years  before.  His  health 
was  broken  by  his  toils  and  his  excesses,  and  he  no  longer 
took  any  care  of  himself.  On  the  twenty-seventh  of  October, 
seventeen  hundred  and  twenty-four,  he  flung  himself  into  icy 
water  up  to  his  waist  to  save  a  boat  in  distress  ;  he  began  to 
feel  the  first  symptoms  of  illness,  but  he  recovered,  and  in  Jan- 


\|fj|.i,iii4,fi>|i.,ivip,|,>^  ll^ff^ 


1709-1725.]     PETER  THE    GREAT:   LAST   YEARS.  125 

iiary  lie  again  institnted  the  election  of  a  Prince-pope.  Buturlin, 
who  had  taken  the  place  of  Zotof  in  this  office,  had  jnst  died, 
and  a  new  Conclave  of  Cardinals  was  assembled.  Peter,  as 
usual,  drank  to  excess.  In  the  "  benediction  of  the  waters  " 
he  caught  a  fresh  cold,  and  died  on  the  twenty-eighth  of  Jan- 
uary, seventeen  hundred  and  twenty-five,  without  being  able 
either  to  speak  or  write  his  last  wishes.  He  was  then  only 
fifty-three  years  of  age. 

Pie  was,  above  all,  a  man  of  war,  marked  as  such  by  his  tall 
figure,  his  robust  limbs,  his  nervous  and  sanguine  tempera- 
ment, and  his  arm  as  strong  as  a  blacksmith's.  His  life  Avas 
a  straggle  with  the  forces  of  the  past,  with  the  ignorant  nobles, 
with  the  fanatical  clergy,  with  the  people  who  plumed  them- 
selves on  their  barbarism  and  national  isolation,  with  the  Cos- 
sack and  Strelits,  representatives  of  the  old  army,  and  with  the 
raskol,  the  representative  of  the  old  superstition.  This  com- 
bat, which  shook  Russia  and  the  world,  he  found  repeated  in 
his  own  family.  It  began  with  his  sister  Sophia,  and  continued 
with  his  wife  Evdokia  and  his  son  Alexis.  Entirely  given  up 
to  his  terrible  task,  Peter  all  his  life  disdained  pomp,  luxury, 
and  every  kind  of  display.  The  first  Emperor  of  Russia,  the 
founder  of  Saint  Petersburg,  forgot  to  build  himself  a  palace  ; 
his  favorite  residence  of  Peterhof  is  like  the  villa  of  a  well-to- 
do  citizen  of  Saandam.  His  table  was  frugal,  and  what  he 
soug;ht  in  his  orsfies  of  beer  or  brandv  was  a  stimulant  or  a  dis- 
traction.  The  people  have  preserved  his  memory  in  their  songs 
or  popular  traditions  ;  they  delight  in  repeating,  "  He  worked 
harder  than  a  burlak."  This  well-filled  life  was  like  a  fever 
of  perpetual  activity,  in  which  Peter,  Avith  Russia,  panted  and 
exhausted  himself.  Is  it  wonderful  that  he  roughly  hurled  all 
obstacles  out  of  his  way?  His  movement  was  prompt  and 
his  hand  heavy ;  the  staff  of  Ivan  the  Pourth  seems  to  have 
passed  into  his  grasp.  We  have  seen  him  strike  with  his 
cane  the  greatest  lords.  Prince  Menshikof  among  the  number. 
To  his  will  he  bent  men,  things,  nature,  and  time  ;  he  realized 


126  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  IV. 

his  end  by  despotic  blows.  For  a  long  while  yet  Russian  and 
foreign  historians  will  either  hesitate  to  pass  a  final  judgment 
on  him,  or  will  advance  contradictory  opinions.  The  truth 
will  probably  be  found  not  in  the  fulsome  adulations  of  Vol- 
taire, nor  in  the  bitter  criticism  of  Prince  Augustiu  Galit- 
suin,  but  in  a  reasonable  estimate  which,  while  recognizing 
his  faults,  sees  his  virtues  and  the  real  greatness  of  his  char- 
acter. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  V7IDO^Ar  AND  GRANDSON  OF  PETER  THE 
GREAT  :  CATHERINE  THE  FIRST  AND  PETER 
THE  SECOND. 

1735-1730. 

The  Work  of  Peter  the  Great  continued  by  Catherine.  — Menshi- 
Kop  AND  the  Dolgorukis. — Maurice  de  Saxe  in  Kurland. 


THE  WORK  OF  PETER   THE   GREAT  CONTINUED  BY 
CATHERINE. 

AT  the  death  of  Peter  the  Great  the  nation  was  divided  into 
two  parties  :  one  supported  his  grandson,  Peter  Alexie- 
vitch,  then  twelve  years  old,  the  other  wished  to  proclaim  Cath- 
erine the  Livonian.  The  Galitsuins,  the  Dolgorukis,  Repnin, 
and  all  Old  Russia  desired  to  place  the  crown  on  the  head  of 
Peter  Alexievitch ;  but  those  who  owed  their  elevation  to 
Peter  the  First,  those  who  were  involved  in  the  trial  of  his  son, 

—  Prince  Menshikof,  Admiral  Apraxin,  Buturlin,  Colonel  of 
the  Guard,  the  Chancellor  Golovkin,  laguzhinski,  Procurator- 
General  of  the  Senate,  the  German  Ostermann,  Tolstoi,  who 
had  induced  Alexis  to  quit  the  Castle  of  Sant'  Elmo,  the 
Bishop  Peofan,  author  of  the  Pravda  voli  monarshei,  and  the 
members  of  the  tribimal  which  had  condemned  the  Tsarevitch, 

—  all  felt  that  their  only  hope  of  salvation  lay  in  Catherine. 
They  were  the  more  capable  and  the  more  enlightened  ;  they 
held  the  power  actually  in  their  hands,  —  directed  the  admin- 
istration and  commanded  the  army.  Their  adversaries  felt 
that  they  must  be  content  with  a  compromise.  Dmitri  Galit- 
suin  proposed  to  proclaim  Peter  the  Second,  but  only  under 


128  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  V. 

the  guardianship  of  the  Empress-widow.  Tolstoi  opposed  this, 
on  the  ground  that  it  was  the  most  certain  means  of  arming 
one  party  against  the  other,  of  giving  birth  to  troubles,  of 
offering  hostile  factions  a  pretext  for  raising  the  people  against 
the  regent.  He  proved  that,  m  the  absence  of  all  testament- 
ary disposition,  Catherine  had  the  best  right  to  succeed  Peter 
the  First.  She  had  been  solemnly  crowned,  and  had  received 
the  oaths  of  her  subjects ;  she  was  initiated  into  all  the  State 
secrets,  and  had  learned  from  her  husband  how  to  govern. 
The  officers  and  regiments  of  Guards  loudly  declared  in  favor 
of  the  heroine  of  the  Pruth.  It  was  at  last  decided  that  she 
should  reign  alone,  and  absolute,  by  the  same  title  as  the  dead 
Tsar.  To  be  sure,  it  was  a  novelty  in  Russia,  —  a  novelty  even 
greater  than  the  regency  of  Sophia.  Catherine  was  not  only  a 
woman,  but  a  foreigner,  a  captive,  a  second  wife,  hardly  con- 
sidered as  a  wife  at  all.  There  was  more  than  one  protest 
against  a  decision  which  excluded  the  grandson  of  Peter  the 
Great  from  the  throne,  and  many  raskolniki  suffered  torture 
rather  than  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  a  woman. 

Menshikof,  one  of  Catherine's  early  lovers,  found  himself  all- 
powerful.  He  was  able  to  stop  the  trial  for  maladministration 
which  had  been  brought  against  him  by  the  late  Tsar,  and  ob- 
tained the  gift  of  Baturin,  ]\Iazeppa's  ancient  capital,  which 
was  equivalent  to  the  whole  principality  of  the  Ukraina.  His 
despotic  temper  and  his  bad  character  made  him  hated  by 
his  companions.  Discoj'd  broke  out  among  the  "  eaglets  "  of 
Peter  the  Great,  laguzhinski,  angry  because  he  did  not  enjoy 
as  much  authority  as  under  Peter,  and  feeling  that  he  had  been 
insulted  by  Catherine,  went  to  weep  publicly  over  the  tomb  of 
the  Tsar,  and  tried  to  open  the  coffin  with  his  teeth  and  nails, 
crying  out :  "  Come  forth,  O  my  master,  from  thy  tomb,  to 
avenge  me,  and  behold  how  Russia  is  governed  now  that  thou 
art  dead  !  "  Tolstoi  was  afterwards  sent  to  Siberia.  Catherine 
succeeded,  however,  in  bridling  the  ambition  of  her  favorite, 
and  refused  to  sacrifice  her  other  councillors  to  him. 


1725-1730.]         CATHERINE   I.   AND   PETER  11.  129 

This  regime  was  the  continuation  of  that  of  Peter.  It  dis- 
appointed the  pessimist  predictions  which  announced  the 
abandonment  of  Saint  Petersburg  and  the  fleet,  and  the  re- 
turn to  jMoscow.  Most  of  the  schemes  which  had  been  devised 
by  the  reforming  Tsar  were  carried  out.  The  Academy  of 
Sciences  was  inaugurated  in  seventeen  hundred  and  twenty- 
six  ;  the  pubUcation  of  the  Gazette  was  carefully  watched  over  ; 
the  Order  of  Alexander  Nevski,  which  Peter  had  originated 
after  the  Peace  of  Nystad,  was  founded ;  Behring,  the  Danish 
captain,  was  placed  at  the  head  of  the  scientific  expedition  to 
Kamtchatka ;  Shafirof,  recalled  from  banishment,  was  ordered 
to  write  the  History  of  Peter  the  Great ;  Anna  Petrovna  was 
solemnly  married  on  the  first  of  June,  seventeen  hundred  and 
twenty-five,  to  the  Duke  of  Holstein,  to  whom  she  had  been 
betrothed  by  her  father.  On  the  other  hand,  the  senate  and 
and  the  Holy  Synod  lost  their  title  of  "  directing,"  and  affairs 
of  State  had  to  be  conducted  in  the  Secret  High  Council, 
which  met  under  the  presidency  of  the  Empress,  and  was 
composed  of  Menshikof,  of  the  Admiral  Apraxin,  of  the  Chan- 
cellor Golovkin,  Tolstoi,  Dmitri  Galitsuin,  and  of  the  Vice- 
chancellor  Ostermann. 

On  her  death-bed,  Catherine  nominated  Peter  Alexievitch, 
her  husband's  grandson,  as  her  successor,  and,  in  default  of 
Peter,  her  two  daughters  Anna  of  Holstein  and  Elisabeth. 
During  the  young  Emperor's  minority,  the  regency  was  to  be 
exercised  by  the  High  Council,  in  which  Anna  and  Elisabeth 
were  to  hold  precedence.  The  Duke  of  Holstein,  Menshikof, 
Apraxin,  Golovkin,  Ostermann,  Dmitri  Galitsuin,  and  Vasili 
Dolgoruki  were  the  other  members  of  this  Council ;  but  in 
reality  it  met  only  once,  Menshikof  taking  upon  himself  the 
duties  of  regent. 

The  Empress  died  on  the  seventeenth  of  May,  seventeen 
hundred  and  twenty-seven,  and  on  the  following  morning  the 
nobihty  and  clergy  of  the  empire  assembled  in  the  great  hall 
of  the  palace,  to  hear  the  reading  of  the  will.     Peter  was  de- 

VOL.    II.  9 


130  HISTORY   OE   EUSSIA.  [Chap.  V. 

clarecl  Emperor  of  all  the  Russias.  Mensliikof  took  meas- 
ures to  keep  his  high  appointment  under  the  new  reign,  and 
even  to  increase  his  power.  Those  whom  he  felt  would  limit 
his  influence,  he  took  pains  to  send  on  distant  commissions  or 
to  banish.  laguzhinski  was  sent  to  the  Ukraina.  Makarof 
was  detailed  to  inspect  the  mines  of  Siberia.  Apraxin  was  re- 
moved from  the  Court.  Menshikof  had  obtained  from  Cath- 
erine the  promise  that  she  would  consent  to  the  young  prince's 
betrothal  to  his  own  daughter,  though  she  was  the  elder  by  two 
years.  He  assigned  his  own  palace  on  the  right  bank  of  the 
river  as  the  Emperor's  residence,  and  surrounded  him  by  men 
devoted  to  his  own  interests.  He  caused  himself  to  be  made 
Generalissimo,  and  signed  his  letters  to  his  sovereign  with  the 
words,  "  Your  father."  He  had  the  members  of  his  own  fam- 
ily inscribed  in  the  almanac  with  those  of  the  imperial  house, 
and  his  daughter  mentioned  in  the  public  prayers.  lie  even 
planned  to  marry  Peter's  sister,  Natalia  Alexievna,  to  his  son  at 
the  same  time  that  his  daughter  became  the  Avife  of  the  Em- 
peror. Peter  the  Second  soon  began  to  be  impatient  of  the 
government  of  the  Generalissimo.  Menshikof  had  given  him 
as  tutor  the  Vice-Chancellor  Ostermann,  but  the  young  prince 
detested  study,  and  preferred  to  hunt  with  his  favorite,  Ivan 
Dolgoruki.  The  clever  Ostermann  took  care  to  make  Menshi- 
kof responsible  for  the  odium  of  his  appointment  as  tutor,  and 
to  excuse  himself  as  best  he  could  to  the  prince.  One  day  in 
September,  seventeen  hundred  and  twenty-one,  the  Emperor 
sent  a  present  of  nine  thousand  ducats  to  his  sister  Natalia. 
Menshikof  had  the  insolence  to  take  them  from  the  princess, 
saying  that  "  the  Emperor  was  young,  and  did  not  yet  know 
how  to  use  money  properly."  This  time  Peter  rebelled,  and 
the  prince  appeased  him  with  great  difficulty.  Another  enemy 
of  the  Generahssimo,  who  managed  playfully  to  undermine  his 
popularity,  was  Elisabeth,  the  young  aunt  of  Peter  the  Second, 
and  the  daughter  of  Peter  the  Great.  She  Avas  then  seventeen 
years  old,  bright,  gay,  and  careless,  with  a  pink-and- white 


1725-1730.]  CATHERINE   I.  AND  PETER  II.  131 

complexion  and  blue  eyes ;  and  slie  laughed  the  intolerable 
guardian  out  of  power.  An  attack  of  illness  which  happened 
to  Menshikof,  by  keeping  him  away  from  Court,  led  to  his  fall. 
Peter  the  Second  became  accustomed  to  the  idea  of  gettino- 
rid  of  him.  When  the  prince  recovered  and  began  as  usual 
to  oppose  his  wishes,  Peter  quitted  JNlenshikof's  palace,  caused 
the  furniture  belonging  to  the  Crown  to  be  removed  from  it 
and  placed  in  the  imperial  palace,  treated  his  bride  elect  with 
marked  coldness,  and  finally  commanded  the  guards  to  take 
no  orders  but  from  their  colonels.  This  was  the  prelude  to  an 
overwhelming  public  disgrace.  In  September,  seventeen  hun- 
dred and  twenty-seven,  Menshikof  was  arrested,  despoiled  of 
all  his  dignities  and  decorations,  and  banished  to  his  own 
lands. 

The  Dolgorukis  profited  by  the  revolution  they  had  pre- 
pared, but  immediately  committed  the  same  fault  as  Men- 
shikof, and  surrounded  Peter  with  the  same  officious  at- 
tentions. Like  Menshikof,  they  banished  all  who  offended 
them,  even  Ostermann,  to  whom  the  Emperor  began  to  be 
attached  ;  and  the  old  Tsaritsa,  Evdokia  Lapukhin,  who  had 
been  recalled  from  the  prison  in  Ladoga.  Using  as  a  pretext 
some  insulting  placards  recalling  the  services  of  Menshikof, 
they  exiled  him  to  Berezof  in  Siberia,  where  he  died  in  seven- 
teen hundred  and  twenty-nine.  Unwarned  by  his  example, 
they  imposed  on  the  prince  a  new  bride,  — Ekaterina  Dolgoruki, 
the  sister  of  his  favorite  Ivan.  Their  administration  then  as- 
sumed the  character  of  a  reaction  against  the  reforms  of  Peter 
the  Great.  In  January,  seventeen  hundred  and  twenty-eight, 
the  young  Emperor  Avent  to  Moscow  for  his  coronation.  He 
was  received  with  the  warmest  expression  of  aflPection  by  the 
people.  But  Ostermann  and  all  the  faithful  servants,  foreign 
or  Russian,  of  the  "  Giant  Tsar,"  saw  with  sorrow  the  return 
of  the  Court  to  Moscow,  and  its  indifference  to  all  European 
affairs.  In  order  the  better  to  keep  their  master  to  themselves, 
the  Dolgorukis  flattered  his  tastes  for  frivolity  and  dissipation. 


132  HISTOEY   OF   EUSSIA.  [Chap.  V. 

and  organized  great  hunting-parties  which  lasted  for  whole 
weeks.  Peter  would  have  wearied  of  them  in  the  end  as 
he  did  of  Menshikof.  He  had  already  replied  to  his  aunt 
Elisabeth,  who  com})lained  that  she  was  left  without  money, 
"  It  is  not  my  fault ;  they  never  execute  my  orders,  but  I 
shall  find  means  of  breaking  my  fetters."  The  crisis  hap- 
pened, but  not  as  had  been  expected.  His  marriage  was  to 
have  taken  place  in  January,  seventeen  hundred  and  thirty ; 
but  the  young  Emperor  caught  cold  at  the  ceremony  of  the 
"  benediction  of  the  waters,"  and  died  suddenly  of  small-pox. 
He  was  fourteen  years  and  about  four  months  old. 

The  two  reigns  of  Catherine  and  Peter  the  Second,  which 
lasted  in  all  only  five  years,  were  peaceful. 

In  seventeen  hundred  and  twenty-six  Russia  had  concluded 
a  treaty  of  alliance  with  the  Court  of  Vienna,  and  found  itself 
involved,  in  seventeen  hundred  and  twenty-seven,  in  the  war 
of  the  quadruple  alliance.  Notwithstanding  the  efforts  of 
Kurakin  and  of  Campredon,  the  failure  of  the  projected  mar- 
riage of  Louis  the  Eifteenth  and  EHsabeth  had  produced  a 
coldness  between  France  and  Russia.  The  most  curious 
episode  in  the  foreign  relations  was  the  attempt  of  Maurice 
de  Saxe,  illegitimate  son  of  King  Augustus,  to  get  posses- 
sion of  the  Duchy  of  Kurland.  The  offer  of  his  hand  had 
been  accepted  by  the  Duchess  Anna  Ivanovna,  now  a  widow ; 
he  had  been  elected  at  Mitava  by  the  deputies  of  the  nobility. 
Neglecting  the  protest  of  the  Polish  diet  and  the  remonstrances 
of  Erance  and  Russia,  he  raised  troops  with  the  money  pro- 
duced by  the  sale  of  the  diamonds  belonging  to  an  abbess 
of  Quedlimburg,  and  a  Erench  comedian,  his  mother  Aurora 
von  Konigsmark,  and  his  mistress  Adrienne  Lecouvreur,  and 
began  to  put  the  duchy  in  a  state  of  defence.  He  was  disa- 
vowed by  his  father,  and  Cardinal  Eleury  did  not  dare  to 
support  him  even  indirectly.  Menshikof,  left  more  free  siuce 
the  death  of  Catherine  the  Eirst,  was  himself  a  candidate  for 
the  duchy.     He  sent  Lascy,  at  the  head  of  eight  thousand 


1725-1730.]         CATHEHINE   I.   AND   PETER  11.  133 

men,  to  expel  the  Saxon  adventurers ;  and  the  future  victor  of 
Fontenoy  could  collect  only  two  hundred  and  forty-seven  men 
in  the  isle  of  Usmaiis,  and  was  obhged,  in  his  retreat,  to 
swim  across  an  arm  of  the  sea.  His  election  was  annulled, 
his  father  publicly  called  him  a  galopin,  or  scullion,  and 
Kurland  once  more  fell  back  under  Russian  influence. 

A  treaty  with  Prussia  was  signed  under  Peter  the  Second, 
in  virtue  of  which  the  two  Powers  engaged  at  the  death  of 
Augustus  to  support  the  candidate  whom  they  might  choose 
for  Poland.  The  Emperor  Charles  the  Sixth  and  the 
"  sergeant-king  "  sounded  Russia  about  an  eventual  dismem- 
berment of  the  republic  of  Poland.  This  is  the  first  time 
that  the  question  of  partition  was  mooted. 

In  Asia,  laguzhinski  concluded  on  the  Bura  a  treaty  of 
commerce  with  the  Celestial  Empire,  in  the  name  of  Peter 
the  Second.  Every  three  years  Russian  caravans  might  go  to 
Pekin  and  trade  without  paying  dues.  Russia  might  keep 
four  priests  at  Pekin,  and  six  young  men  to  learn  Chinese. 
Kiakhta,  on  the  Russian  territory,  and  Maimaitchin,  on  the 
Chinese  territory,  were  the  authorized  depots. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  TWO  ANNAS  :  REIGN  OF  ANNA  IVAN- 
OVNA,  AND  REGENCY  OF  ANNA  LEOPOLD- 
OVNA. 

1730-1741. 

Attempt  at  an  Aristocratic  Constitution  (1730):  the  "Bironov- 
SHTCHiNA."  —  Succession  of  the  Polish  Crown  (1733-1735)  and 
War  with  Turkey  (1735-1739).  —  Ivan  the  Sixth.  —  Begency  op 
BiREN  AND  Anna.  —  Kevolution  or  1741. 


ATTEMPT  AT  AN  ARISTOCRATIC  CONSTITUTION:   THE 
"  BIRONO  VSHTCHINA." 

THE  untimely  death  of  the  last  male  heir  of  Peter  the  Eirst 
had  taken  everybody  by  surprise.  It  was  so  sudden  that 
no  party  had  been  formed  to  determine  the  succession.  Peter 
had  left  two  daughters,  Elisabeth  and  Anna,  Duchess  of 
Holstein,  who  died  in  seventeen  hundred  and  twenty-eight, 
and  was  represented  by  her  son,  afterwards  Peter  the  Third. 
The  Tsar's  brother,  Ivan  Alexievitch  the  Eifth,  had  also  left 
two  daughters,  Anna  Ivanovna,  Duchess  of  Kurland,.  and 
Catherine  Ivanovna,  Duchess  of  Mecklenburg.  The  wishes 
of  some  even  turned  towards  the  late  Emperor's  grandmother, 
the  Tsaritsa  Lapukhin.  Alexis  Dolgoruki,  father  of  Ivan,  the 
friend  of  Peter  the  Second,  had  a  yet  bolder  idea ;  he  claimed 
the  throne  for  his  daughter  Ekaterina,  although  she  was  not 
even  Peter's  wife,  but  only  his  betrothed,  and  he  had  the 
audacity  to  speak  of  a  certain  will  of  the  sovereign,  instituting 
her  his  heir.  This  proposal  naturally  found  little  favor  in  the 
Secret  High  Council,  and  was  rejected  with  contempt,  even  by 


1730-1741.]  THE  TWO  ANNAS.  135 

a  part  of  the  house  of  Dolgoruki,  whose  chiefs  did  not  rehsh 
the  notion  of  being  the  subjects  of  their  niece.  It  was  decided 
to  take  another  step.  In  the  absence  of  the  prudent  Ostermann, 
who  used  the  pretext  of  a  feigned  iUness,  and  the  fact  that  he 
was  a  foreigner,  the  Secret  High  Council,  after  the  addition  of 
the  marshals  Dolgoruki  and  Galitsuin,  was  entirely  composed 
of  the  great  Russian  nobility.  It  found  itself,  as  the  principal 
organ  of  government,  invested  with  the  chief  power,  and  mas- 
ter of  the  position.  It  resolved  to  profit  by  these  circum- 
stances to  limit  the  supreme  authority,  to  give  to  the  Russian 
aristocracy  a  sort  of  constitutional  charter,  and  to  impose  on 
the  sovereign  who  might  be  elected  a  kind  of  pacta  conventa, 
such  as  existed  in  the  republic  of  Poland.  Elisabeth  and  the 
Duchess  of  Holstein,  being  the  nearest  to  the  throiie,  would 
no  doubt  manifest  the  greatest  reluctance  to  accept  these 
conditions.  Thus  it  was  necessary  to  turn  to  another  branch 
of  the  family  of  Romanof,  to  the  line  of  Ivan,  and  offer  the 
crown  to  a  princess  who,  having  little  hope  of  gaining  the 
throne,  would  be  ready  to  accede  to  all  the  Council  wished. 
The  Council  then  resolved  to  open  negotiations  with  Anna 
Ivanovna,  and  to  propose  to  her  the  following  terms :  That 
the  High  Council  should  always  be  composed  of  eight  mem- 
bers, to  be  consulted  by  the  Tsaritsa  in  all  affairs  of  govern- 
ment; that  without  the  consent  of  the  Council  she  should 
make  neither  peace  nor  war,  impose  no  taxes,  alienate  no 
crown  lands,  nominate  to  no  post  nor  any  rank  above  that  of 
colonel ;  that  she  should  put  to  death  no  member  of  the  nobil- 
ity, nor  confiscate  the  property  of  any  noble,  without  a  regular 
trial ;  that  she  was  neither  to  marry  nor  to  choose  a  successor 
without  the  consent  of  the  Council.  "  And,"  adds  the  draught 
of  the  letter  laid  before  her  for  signature,  and  containing  the 
points  indicated,  "  in  case  of  my  ceasing  to  fulfil  my  engage- 
ments, I  shall  forfeit  the  crown  of  Russia."  This  was  the  si 
no)i  non  of  the  Cortes  of  Aragon.  If  this  constitution  had 
been  carried  out,  Russia  would  have  become  an  oligarchic 


13G  HISTORY   OP   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  VI. 

republic  instead  of  an  autocratic  empire,  a  sort  of  pospolif, 
where  nothing  would  have  remained  of  the  work  of  the  Ivans 
and  Peter  the  Great.  The  High  Council  likewise  proposed  to 
fix  the  seat  of  government  at  Moscow. 

This  constitution,  which  assured  to  the  Russian  nobles  the 
inviolability  of  their  persons  and  property,  the  English  "  habeas 
corpus  "  and  self-imposed  taxation,  raised,  however,  a  general 
outcry.  What !  give  Russia  the  same  anarchic  institutions 
that  the  three  Northern  powers  were  trying  to  maintain  in 
Poland  ?  All  the  prerogatives,  all  the  rights,  all  the  authority, 
"w^ere  reserved  to  the  members  of  the  High  Council.  Instead 
of  one  Tsar  they  would  have  eight.  And  who  were  these 
eight  ?  With  the  exception  of  Golovkin  and  Ostermann,  they 
were  all  Galitsuins  and  Dolgorukis,  —  two  Galitsuins  and  four 
Dolgorukis  ;  the  empire  was  to  be  the  property  of  two  fami- 
lies. While  the  monarchical  instincts  of  the  greater  number, 
and  the  aristocratic  jealousy  of  many  others,  were  excited,  the 
partisans  of  reform  were  troubled  at  finding  in  the  supreme 
council  only  the  members  of  the  old  nobility  who  were  the 
upholders  of  the  ancient  order  of  things.  The  discontent 
broke  forth  in  murmurs  and  turmoils  ;  the  High  Council  was 
obliged  to  take  severe  measures  against  meetings,  —  a  singular 
inauguration  of  the  reign  of  liberty,  which  showed  how  little 
sympathy  the  nation  felt  with  the  attempt  of  the  nobles. 

A  few  days  later  the  High  Council  convoked  the  general 
assembly  to  listen  to  the  letter  in  which  Anna  Ivanovna  an- 
nounced her  acceptance  of  all  the  conditions.  "  There  was  no 
one  present,"  says  Archbishop  Peofan,  "  who  heard  the  letter 
Avho  did  not  tremble  in  all  his  limbs.  Even  those  who  had 
hoped  much  from  this  reunion  lowered  their  ears  like  poor 
asses:  there  was  a  '  whispering'  and  a  general  murmur,  but  none 
dared  to  speak  or  cry  out."  The  five  hundred  people  present 
silently  afRxed  their  signatures.  However,  on  the  twenty-first 
of  Pebruary,  seventeen  hundred  and  thirty,  the  new  Empress 
made  her  solemn  entrance  into  Moscow.     While  Vasili  Lu- 


.1730-1741.]  THE   TWO   ANNAS.  137 

kitcli  Dolgoruki  and  liis  party  constituted  themselves  the 
guards  of  the  Empress,  surrounded  her  jealously,  and  saw  that 
no  enemy  of  the  constitution  cauie  near  her,  the  malcontents, 
with  Feofan  at  their  head,  were  agitating  the  clergy  and  the 
people.  They  found  means  to  pass  some  notes  to  the  Empress, 
acquainting  her  with  the  situation,  and  imploring  her  to  act 
energetically.  Children  or  ladies-in-waiting  served  as  go- 
betweens.  On  the  eightli  of  March  the  members  of  the 
Council  were  deliberating,  when  they  were  suddenly  sum- 
moned before  the  Empress.  They  were  much  astonished  to 
find  an  assembly  composed  of  eight  hundred  persons,  belong- 
ing to  the  senate,  the  clergy,  the  nobility,  and  to  the  different 
administrations,  who  laid  before  iVnna  a  petition  that  she  would 
examine  the  complaints  addressed  to  the  High  Council  about 
the  new  constitution.  At  tlie  lower  end  of  the  hall  the  officers 
of  the  guard  cried  out  in  excitement,  "  We  do  not  want  them 
to  lay  down  the  law  to  the  Empress.  Let  her  be  an  autocrat 
like  her  predecessors  !  "  Others  offered  to  lay  at  her  feet  the 
heads  of  her  enemies.  She  calmed  the  tumult,  and  pro- 
rogued the  sitting  till  the  afternoon,  when  the  deputies  pre- 
sented a  formal  request  for  the  re-estabhshment  of  autocracy. 
The  Empress  was  astonished,  and  exclaimed,  "  What  !  the 
conditions  sent  me  at  Mitava,  were  they  not  the  Avill  of 
the  Avhole  nation?"  "No,  no,"  they  cried.  "Then,"  she 
said,  turning  to  Vasili  Lukitch  Dolgoruki,  "  you  have  de- 
ceived me." 

Such  was  the  check  received  by  the  first  liberal  constitution 
that  had  ever  been  tried  in  Russia.  "  The  table  was  pre- 
pared," said  Prince  Dmitri  Galitsuin,  "  but  the  guests  were 
not  worthy.  I  know  that  I  shall  pay  for  the  failure  of  this 
enterprise  ;  so  be  it.  I  shall  suffer  for  my  country,  I  have 
not  long  to  live,  and  those  who  cause  me  to  weep  will  one  day 
weep  themselves."  The  Galitsuins  and  Dolgorukis  did  indeed 
expiate  this  generous  attempt,  in  which  unhappily  they  had 
taken  no  thought  of  the  time  nor  the  country.     Anna's  ven- 


13S  HISTORY    OP   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  VL 

geance  was  cunning,  refined,  and  gradual.  She  began  by  ban- 
ishing them  to  their  estates  ;  then,  seeing  that  no  one  protested, 
she  exiled  them  to  Siberia.  Finally,  encouraged  by  the  uni- 
versal silence,  she  crowned  her  revenge.  The  marshals  Dol- 
goruki  and  Galitsuin  died  in  prison ;  Vasili  Lukitch  and  two 
other  Dolgorukis  were  beheaded  ;  Ivan,  the  former  favorite, 
was  broken  on  the  wheel  to  Novgorod.  With  these  sufferings 
is  associated  the  touching  and  tragic  history  of  Natalia  Shere- 
metief,  betrothed  wife  of  Ivan  Dolgoruki,  who,  having  accepted 
his  hand  in  the  days  of  his  prosperity,  persisted  in  sharing  his 
misfortunes. 

Anna  Ivanovna  Avas  tlien  thirty-five  years  of  age.  In  her 
youth  she  had  lived  in  the  dreary  court  of  Mitava,  a  bride 
sought  for  her  duchy,  the  pohtical  plaything  of  the  four  North- 
ern courts,  despised  by  Menshikof,  and  receiving  orders  and 
reproaches  from  Moscow.  The  bitterness  of  her  regrets  and 
her  disappointments  was  painted  in  her  severe  countenance, 
and  reflected  in  her  soured  and  coldly  cruel  character.  A 
head  taller  than  the  gentlemen  of  her  court,  with  a  hard  and 
masculine  beauty,  and  the  deep  voice  of  a  man,  she  was  impos- 
ing, and  even  terrible.  The  aristocratic  attempt  of  seventeeii 
hundred  and  thirty  made  her  mistrust  the  Russians,  and  she 
felt  that  a  project  less  exclusive  and  more  clever  than  that  of 
the  High  Council  would  perhaps  have  had  a  chance  wuth  the 
Russian  nation.  By  way  of  precaution,  and  from  taste,  she 
surrounded  herself  with  Germans,  Ernest  Biren,  or  Biron,  her 
lover,  at  the  head  of  them,  a  Kurlander,  who  in  the  reign  of 
Peter  the  Great  had  desired  to  enter  the  Russian  service,  but 
was  refused  because  of  his  low  birth.  The  nobility  of  the  duchy 
had  at  first  refused  to  admit  him  among  them;  but,  gaining 
Anna's  affection  by  his  many  amiable  qualities  and  agreeable 
manners,  she  caused  him  to  be  elected  Duke  of  Kurland.  He 
now  became  Lord  Chamberlain,  and  was  created  by  the  Em- 
])eror,  Charles  the  Sixth,  a  Prince  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire. 
Slie  made  Lewenwold  manager  of  court  affairs,  Ostermami 


1730-1741.]  THE   TWO   ANNAS.  131J 

chief  of  the  foreign  administration,  Korff  and  Kayserhng  direc- 
tors of  the  embassies;  Lascy,  Miinnich,  Bismark,  and  (Jiistaf 
Biren,  Ernest's  brother,  general  of  the  army.  It  was  in  Ger- 
many that  she  afterwards  chose  to  seek  for  her  successor,  — 
Ivan  the  Sixth,  the  son  of  her  niece  Anna,  and  grandson  of 
Catherine  Ivanovna,  Princess  of  Mecklenburg,  who  was  married 
to  the  Duke  of  Brunswick-Bevern.  The  Russians  henceforth 
held  only  secondary  positions  in  the  government.  Biren,  inso- 
lent and  brutal,  boasted  in  their  presence  of  his  being  a  foreigner, 
of  his  holding  the  title  of  Duke  of  Kurland.  The  Germans  ruled 
in  Russia,  just  as  the  Tatars  had  formerly  done ;  and  a  new  word, 
Bironovshtchina,  expressive  of  the  new  regime,  was  coined  on 
the  model  of  the  old  Tatarshtchina.  But  if  the  Germans  were 
triumphant,  was  it  not  the  fault  of  the  Russians  themselves? 
The  "  eaglets  "  of  Peter  the  Great  had  torn  each  other  to  pieces. 
Menshikof  had  ruined  Tolstoi  and  laguzhinski,  aud  was  in  his 
turn  destroyed  by  the  Dolgorukis,  themselves  victims,  witli  the 
Galitsuins,  of  the  national  hate.  Besides  all  this,  the  stran- 
gers who  took  their  posts  and  filled  the  place  they  had  left 
vacant  Avere  far  more  laborious  and  more  exact  than  the  na- 
tives. The  Russians  had  still  to  pass  through  a  hard  school  to 
acquire  the  qualities  they  lacked. 

The  new  government  was  pitiless  towards  the  Russians  : 
Feofilakt  Lopatinski  was  deposed  and  imprisoned  in  Vuiborg, 
for  having  edited  Stephan  lavorski's  book  against  the  Protes- 
tants, "  Peter,  the  Corner-Stone  of  the  Paith."  Thousands  of 
executions  and  banishments  decimated  the  upper  classes,  and 
a  merciless  collection  of  arrears  of  taxes,  which  Russian 
indolence  had  allowed  to  accumulate,  desolated  the  country ; 
the  peasants  beheld  their  last  head  of  cattle,  their  last  tool, 
seized  by  the  government  for  payment.  The  new  despotism 
methodically  organized  its  means  of  oppression.  To  be  sure, 
it  suppressed  the  High  Council,  in  order  to  restore  the  epithet 
of  "  directing "  to  the  senate,  but  in  reality  it  was  the 
cabinet,   presided   over   by  the    Empress,   and    composed   of 


140  HISTOEY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  VL 

Golovkin,  Ostermann,  and  Prince  Alexis  Tcherkaski,  that 
regulated  all  affairs.  The  old  "  Prikaz  of  Reformation  "  was 
re-established  under  the  name  of  the  "  Secret  Court  of  Police," 
and  the  cruel  Ushakof  placed  at  the  head.  As  the  Empress 
had  confidence  only  in  her  guards,  two  new  regiments,  the 
Isma'ilovski,  and  the  horse  guards,  were  created.  Foreign 
officers  were  everywhere,  and  the  brothers  of  the  German 
favorites  distributed  among  themselves  the  ranks  of  colonel 
and  lieutenant-colonel. 

Reassured  as  to  the  solidity  of  her  throne,  Anna  thought 
only  how  to  make  up  for  the  time  she  had  wasted  in  ennui 
and  regret.  A  few  passages  from  the  Memoirs  of  Manstein 
Milnnich's  Adjutant  will  give  an  amusing  picture  of  the  life 
and  manners  of  the  Empress  and  her  Court :  "  The  Duke  of 
Kurland  was  extraordinarily  fond  of  pomp  and  display.  For 
this  reason  Anna  felt  that  she  must  make  her  Court  the  most 
brilliant  in  Europe.  But  she  fell  short  in  the  accomplishment 
of  her  purpose.  There  was  often  a  want  of  harmony  between 
the  most  gorgeous  apparel  and  an  ill-combed  wig ;  the  most 
beautiful  fabrics  were  ruined  by  an  unskilful  tailor ;  or,  if  no 
exception  could  be  taken  to  the  coat,  the  equipage  was  apt 
to  be  in  bad  condition.  A  superbly  dressed  man  would  arrive 
in  a  shabby  coach  draw^n  by  villanous  old  nags.  In  man- 
sions where  everything  glittered  with  gold  and  silver  one 
would  nevertheless  find  the  reign  of  untidiness.  The  ladies 
showed  no  better  taste  than  the  men.-  Where  there  was  one 
lady  clad  becomingly  you  could  count  on  finding  ten  sorry 
toilets.  The  lack  of  arrangement  was  noticeable  througliout 
the  whole  domestic  economy,  and  there  were  only  a  few 
houses,  at  least  in  the  earlier  years,  where  everything  was  in 
complete  harmony.  In  the  mean  time  the  example  of  a  better 
style  began  to  find  imitators. 

"  The  excess  of  display  was  a  source  of  immoderate  expense 
to  the  Court.  A  courtier  who  spent  only  two  or  three  thou- 
sand rubles  for  his  wardrobe  could  scarcely  provide  what  was 


1730-1741.]  THE   TWO   ANNAS.  141 

indispensable.  Very  many  ruined  themselves  in  order  to  cut 
a  figure  at  Court.  A  fashion  merchant  coming  to  Petersburg, 
who  was  obliged  to  get  his  goods  on  credit,  could  become  a 
rich  man  in  two  or  three  years. 

"  The  manner  of  life  led  by  the  Empress  was  very  regular. 
She  always  arose  about  eight  o'clock.  At  nine  she  began  her 
work  with  her  secretary  and  ministers.  At  noon  she  dined 
in  her  chamber  with  Biron's  family.  Only  on  great  occasions 
did  she  keep  open  table.  Then  she  was  accustomed  to  sit 
under  a  canopy  together  with  the  two  princesses,  Elisabeth 
Petrovna  and  Anna  of  Mecklenburg.  On  such  occasions  the 
Lord  Chamberlain  waited  upon  her.  Usually  there  was  a  very 
large  table  laid  in  the  same  hall  for  the  nobles  and  the  officials, 
the  clergy  and  the  representatives  of  foreign  courts.  In  her 
last  years  she  gave  up  the  habit  of  dining  in  public,  and  the 
foreign  ministers  were  entertained  by  Ostermann.  In  sum- 
mer she  walked  much  for  exercise,  in  winter  she  played  bil- 
liards. She  ate  little  in  the  evening.  She  went  to  bed 
regularly  between  eleven  o'clock  and  midnight. 

"  A  large  portion  of  the  pleasant  season  the  Court  spent 
at  the  Petei'hof,  a  mansion  seven  miles  from  Petersburg ;  the 
remainder  of  the  summer  Anna  lived  in  the  city  at  the  sum- 
mer palace,  a  somewhat  ill-constructed  house  on  the  bank  of 
the  Neva.  Play  was  carried  very  high  at  Court.  Very  manv 
won  fortunes  by  gambling,  —  very  many  more  were  ruined  by 
it.  Not  infrequently  twenty  thousand  rubles  were  lost  at  a 
single  game  of  faro  or  quinze.  The  Empress  herself  did  not 
win  much  in  play,  and  when  she  played  it  was  on  purpose  to 
lose.  She  then  would  keep  the  bank,  and  only  those  whom 
she  summoned  were  permitted  to  punt ;  the  winner  was  im- 
mediately paid,  and  as  they  played  only  with  masks,  she  never 
took  money  from  the  loser.  She  was  fond  of  the  theatre  and 
music,  and  she  had  everything  that  pertained  thereto  imported 
from  Italy.  Italian  and  German  comedies  gave  her  extraor- 
dinary satisfaction,   because  they   generally   ended   in   blows 


142  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  VI. 

with  canes.  In  seventeen  hnndred  and  thirty-six  the  first 
opera  was  performed  in  Petersburg ;  but  though  it  was  well 
given,  the  Empress  found  it  less  to  her  taste  than  the  comedy 
and  the  Italian  intermezzo. 

"  The  habit  of  much  drinking,  Avhich  had  been  characteristic 
of  the  Court  in  the  time  of  Peter  the  Pirst  and  his  successors, 
Anna  could  not  endure ;  she  would  not  allow  a  drunken  per- 
son in  her  sight.  Prince  Kurakin  alone  had  permission  to 
drink  as  much  as  he  wished.  But  in  order  not  to  do  away 
entirely  with  such  a  pretty  custom,  the  twenty-ninth  of  Janu- 
ary (old  style),  the  Empress's  coronation  day,  was  devoted  to 
Bacchus.  On  this  day  every  courtier  was  expected  to  kneel 
before  the  Empress  and  drain  a  monstrous  glass  filled  with 
Hungarian  wine." 

Manstein  speaks  also  of  the  grossness  of  the  buffoonery  which 
pleased  Anna.  In  former  times  every  household  of  any  con- 
sequence would  have  at  least  one  fool,  or  jester.  Peter  the 
Great  usually  had  a  dozen.  Anna  of  Mecklenburg,  when  she 
became  regent,  was  the  first  to  dispense  witli  them  at  Court ; 
but  the  Empress  had  six  :  Lakosta,  a  Portuguese  Jew  ;  Pedrillo, 
an  Italian  who  had  been  a  court  violinist ;  Prince  Galitsuin, 
Avho  was  thus  punished  for  becoming  a  Roman  Catholic  ; 
Volkonski,  brother-in-law  of  Alexis  Bestuzhef,  the  next  Lord 
Chancellor ;  Apraxin  ;  and  Balakef.  They  were  beaten  if  they 
refused  to  amuse  the  Court  in  any  way  desired.  Anna  forced 
Nastasia  and  Anisia,  two  Russian  princesses,  to  gulp  balls  of 
pastry,  and  crouch  in  bark  pails,  and  cackle  like  hens  sitting 
on  eggs.  The  wife  of  Prince  Galitsuin  having  died,  Anna 
obliged  him  to  marry  a  girl  of  common  birth,  a  Kalmuik 
named  Buzhenina,  after  her  favorite  dish  of  pork,  and  she 
herself  defrayed  the  cost  of  the  ceremony.  The  governors  of 
all  the  provinces  sent  to  Saint  Petersburg  representatives  of 
every  nation  belonging  to  the  empire  to  take  part  in  the  fes- 
tival. Toward  the  end  of  the  cold  winter  of  seventeen  hun- 
slred  and  thirty-nine  Anna  had  a  palace  built  entirely  of  ice, 


1730-1741.]  THE   TWO   ANNAS.  143 

all  the  furniture,  the  chairs,  the  mirrors,  and  even  the  bridal 
couch  being  made  of  the  same.  Ice  cannon  and  ice  mortars 
guarded  the  doors,  and  were  fired  without  bursting.  Man- 
stein  gives  a  picture  of  the  procession  starting  out  from 
Voluinski's  palace.  The  newly  married  couple  were  en- 
closed in  a  cage  carried  on  the  back  of  an  elephant.  Then 
the  guests  followed  in  sledges  drawn  by  reindeers,  dogs, 
oxen,  and  swine.  The  dinner  was  served  in  Biren's  riding- 
school,  and  was  followed  by  a  ball,  each  nation  dancing  its 
peculiar  dances  to  its  own  music.  The  bride  and  bride- 
groom were  obliged  to  spend  the  night  in  their  ice  palace, 
guards  being  stationed  to  prevent  their  escape. 

In  the  luxury  with  which  Anna's  Court  dazzled  Russia 
there  was  a  mixture  of  antique  barbarism  and  bad  German 
taste  which  moved  the  mirth  of  Western  travellers.  "  The 
favorite,  Biren,"  relates  Prince  Dolgorukof,  "  loved  bright 
colors,  therefore  black  coats  were  forbidden  at  Court,  and  every 
one  appeared  in  brilliant  raiment ;  nothing  was  seen  but  light 
blue,  pale  green,  yellow,  and  pink.  Old  men,  like  Prince 
Tcherkaski  or  the  Vice-Chancellor  Ostermann,  came  to  the 
palace  in  delicate  rose-color  costumes.  But  this  was  of  slight 
consecpience.  Russian  taste  would  be  formed  in  time,  espe- 
cially by  the  help  of  another  school.  The  Germans  were  pre- 
paring the  way  for  the  French..  Prom  the  point  of  view  of 
dress  and  domestic  economy,  the  Bironovshtchina  marks  an 
important  revolution  in  Russia. 

It  is  an  important  fact  that  the  German  masters  of  Russia 
were  sufficiently  enlightened  to  follow  in  the  steps  of  Peter  the 
Great  and  maintain  his  reforms.  In  the  first  months  of  their 
rule  Ostermann  had  impressed  upon  the  mind  of  the  Empress 
the  necessity  of  returning  to  Saint  Petersburg.  This  was 
accomplished  in  the  beginning  of  the  year  seventeen  hundred 
and  thirty-two,  and  immediately  greater  safety  was  found  to 
have  been  secured.  Lefort  wrote  from  the  capital  in  Feb- 
ruary :  "  No  one  dares  here  to  utter  a  murmur  against  the  will 


144  HISTORY   OP   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  YI. 

of  the  Empress,  and  the  evil-minded  have  been  so  effectually 
put  out  of  the  way,  that  now  scarce  a  trace  can  be  found  of 
the  Russian  whose  unfriendly  designs  are  to  be  feared." 

Anna  abolished  entail,  which  Peter  the  Great  had  unfortu- 
nately borrowed  from  Western  nations,  and  which  had  produced 
such  sad  results  in  Russia.  The  fathers  of  families  wrung  the 
last  drop  of  blood  from  their  peasants  in  order  to  give  a  por- 
tion to  the  younger  sons  ;  if  they  bequeathed  the  land  to  the 
eldest,  they  gave  the  cattle  to  the  other  sons.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  time  devoted  to  the  education  and  the  military  ser- 
vice of  the  young  nobles  was  more  clearly  defined.  From  the 
age  of  seven  to  that  of  twenty  the  young  noble  was  to  study, 
and  from  twenty  to  forty-five  he  was  to  serve  the  State. 
Examinations  were  established  to  test  the  progress  of  the 
boys ;  from  twelve  to  sixteen  they  had  to  appear  before  a 
board,  and  whoever  after  the  second  examination  was  found 
ignorant  of  the  catechism,  arithmetic,  and  geometry,  was 
forced  to  become  a  sailor.  These  rigorous  measures  prove 
how  indifferent  the  mass  of  the  nobles  then  were  to  tlie  advan- 
tages of  education.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  rule  of  the 
Germans,  rough  instructors  though  they  were,  had  a  salutary 
influence  on  Russian  civilization.  On  the  suggestion  of  Miin- 
nich,  the  "corps  of  cadets,"  for  three  hundred  and  sixty  young- 
nobles,  Avas  founded  at  Saint  Petersburg.  General  education 
held  a  larger  place  in  the  progranniie  of  this  school  than  purely 
military  instruction.  Boys  were  prepared  for  the  civil  service 
as  Avell  as  for  the  army.  Orthography,  style,  rhetoric,  juris- 
prudence, ethics,  heraldry,  arithmetic,  the  art  of  fortification, 
artillery,  geography,  general  history,  and  the  history  of  Ger- 
many, though  not  of  Russia,  were  all  taught.  The  most  indus- 
trious and  the  most  distinguished  pupils  might,  after  they  had 
finished  the  preliminary  courses,  follow  those  of  the  Academy 
of  Sciences. 


1730-1741.]  THE   TWO   ANNAS.  145 

SUCCESSION   OF    THE   POLISH    CROWN  AND  WAR 
WITH  TURKEY. 

With  regard  to  the  East,  the  government  of  Anna  Ivanovna 
resolved  to  abandon  the  Persian  provinces  conquered  by  Peter 
the  Great,  where  the  chniate  had  proved  fatal  to  the  Russian 
armies. 

In  seventeen  hundred  and  thirty-three,  after  the  death  of 
Augustus  the  Second,  the  question  of  the  succession  of  the 
Polish  Crown  was  reopened.  Prussia,  which  desired  to  weaken 
Poland,  did  not  wish  to  support  either  the  French  candidate, 
Leshtchinski,  or  the  Saxon  candidate,  Augustus  the  Third. 
Austria,  on  the  contrary,  which  would  gladly  have  beheld 
Poland  sutficiently  strong  to  co-operate  against  the  Turks, 
declared  for  Augustus.  Russia,  whose  object  it  was  to  remain 
mistress  in  Poland  and  Kurland,  cared  little  who  was  elected, 
provided  it  was  neither  a  powerful  prince  nor  a  client  of  France. 
But  Louis  the  Fifteenth  thought  himself  bound  in  honor  to 
maintain  the  cause  of  his  father-in-law,  Stanislas  Leshtchinski, 
the  former  protege  of  Charles  the  Twelfth.  The  Power  whose 
interests  in  this  affair  most  nearly  corresponded  with  those  of 
Russia  was  therefore  the  house  of  Austria.  The  Austro-Russiau 
alliance,  inaugurated  in  the  reign  of  Catherine  the  First,  was 
re-established  under  Anna  Ivanovna.  Prussia,  whose  project 
of  partition  had  been  set  aside,  remained  neutral.  The  struggle 
between  France  and  Russia  began  by  a  diplomatic  rivalry. 
We  find  at  Berlin  La  Chetardie  pitted  against  laguzhinski ; 
at  Stockholm,  Saint  Severin  against  Mikhail  Bestuzhef;  at 
Copenhagen,  Plelo  against  Alexis  Bestuzhef;  at  Constantino- 
ple, Villeneuve  against  Nepluief;  at  Warsaw,  Monti  against 
Lewenwold.  France  hoped  to  support  its  candidate  by 
Swedish  and  Turkish  diversions,  and  to  render  the  neutrality 
of  Prussia  more  favorable;  in  Poland,  the  French  worked  as 
hard  to  persuade  as  Russia  to  intimidate. 

Even  at  Saint  Petersburg,  the  French  ambassador,  Magnan, 

VOL.    II.  10 


146  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  VI. 

neglected  nothing  to  gain  over  the  Empress  and  her  favorite 
to  a  more  peacefid  pohcy  ;  but  the  struggle  was  inevitable. 
While  a  false  Leshtchinski,  the  Chevalier  de  Thiange,  was 
ostentatiously  embarking  at  Brest,  the  real  Stanislas,  disguised 
as  a  commercial  traveller,  crossed  Europe,  and  entered  War- 
saw at  night.  Sixty  thousand  nobles  declared  in  his  favor  on 
the  field  of  election,  and  there  were  only  four  thousand  dis- 
sidents. He  was  therefore  legitimate  King  of  Poland,  yet  the 
Russian  army  was  invading  the  territory  of  the  republic. 
Then  Stanislas  called  the  pospolit  to  arms,  and  retired  into 
the  maritime  fortress  of  Dantzig  to  await  aid  from  France. 
After  his  departure  the  malcontents,  under  the  protection  of 
twenty  thousand  Russian  bayonets,  proclaimed  Augustus  the 
Third.  Stanislas  found  himself  besieged  in  Dantzig  by  Mar- 
shal Munnich,  who,  without  waiting  for  the  artillery,  took  the 
suburbs  of  Schotlandia  by  assault.  The  King  of  Prussia 
refused  the  Russian  guns  passage  through  his  territory,  and 
the  French  frigates  were  watching  the  sea ;  but  notwithstand- 
ing the  blockade,  Munnich  received  his  cannon,  and  by  the 
capture  of  Sommerschantz  cut  off  the  communications  of 
Dantzig  with  the  fortress  of  Weichselmiinde  and  the  mouth  of 
the  Vistula ;  he  then  threw  fifteen  hundred  bombs  into  the 
town.  He  failed,  however,  in  a  bloody  midnight  attack  on 
the  fort  of  Hagelsberg.  The  French  troops  came  up,  led  by 
Count  de  Plelo  and  Lamothe  de  la  Peyrouse,  but  they  num- 
bered only  two  thousand  men.  Plelo  was  killed,  and  the 
Count  de  Lamothe,  who  had  taken  refuge  in  Weichselmiinde, 
was  forced  to  capitulate.  Dantzig  opened  its  gates.  But 
Stanislas  had  already  fled,  disguised  as  a  peasant.  Such  was 
the  first  contest  between  the  French  and  the  Russians.  Lady 
Rondeau  gives  an  account  of  the  presentation  of  the  Count  de 
Lamothe  and  his  officers  to  the  Tsaritsa ;  the  soldiers  Avere 
quartered  in  the  camp  of  Koporie,  in  Ligria ;  and  Anna  did 
all  she  could  to  make  them  desert  and  to  draw  them  into  her 
service.     Monti,  the  French  ambassador  at  Warsaw,  was  taken 


1730-1741.]  THE   TWO   ANNAS.  147 

prisoner  at  Dantzig,  and  in  spite  of  his  diplomatic  character 
was  retained  in  captivity. 

The  war  of  the  PoUsh  Succession  was  ended  in  Poland ;  it 
now  began  on  the  Rhine  and  in  Italy,  and  the  cost  of  it  was 
paid  by  the  house  of  Austria,  against  which  the  French  excited 
the  electors  of  Cologne,  Mayence,  Bavaria,  and  the  Palatinate ; 
they  took  Kehl  and  Philippsburg,  and  deprived  it  of  the  Duchy 
of  Parma  and  the  Kingdom  of  Naples.  In  virtue  of  the  treaty 
of  alliance  of  seventeen  hundred  and  twenty-six,  the  Emperor, 
demanded  help  of  the  Tsaritsa.  Lascy,  at  the  head  of  twenty 
thousand  men,  crossed  Silesia,  Bohemia,  and  Eranconia,  dis- 
playing a  Russian  army  for  the  first  time  before  the  eyes  of 
Western  Germany ;  and  on  the  fifteenth  of  August,  seventeen 
hundred  and  thirty-five,  formed  a  junction  with  the  Austrian 
troops  between  tieidelberg  and  Ladenberg,  two  miles  from 
the  Erench  outposts.  The  Peace  of  Vienna,  however,  put  an 
end  to  hostilities.  The  Erench  had  revenged  themselves  on 
Austria,  which  ceded  Lorraine  and  part  of  Italy,  but  not  on 
Russia,  which  had  taken  Dantzig  under  their  very  eyes.  The 
Erench  ambassador  Villeneuve,  his  former  countryman,  the 
renegade  Bonneval,  who  had  become  Pasha  of  Bosnia,  and  the 
Hungarian  Ragotski,  were  raising  heaven  and  earth  to  induce 
the  Turks  to  declare  war,  although  they  had  every  reason  to 
avoid  a  collision  with  the  Russians.  The  long  struggle  with 
Persia,  the  disturbances  in  Constantinople,  and  the  emptiness 
of  the  treasury,  made  the  Porte  hesitate  long  before  it  took  the 
decisive  step.  But  the  result  of  the  war  with  Poland  was  a 
war  in  the  East,  which  narrowly  escaped  being  complicated 
by  a  Swedish  war. 

In  the  East  also  Russia  had  Austria  for  an  ally.  Cam- 
paigns against  the  Turks,  across  the  desert  steppes  of  the 
South,  offered  the  same  difficulties  as  in  seventeen  hundred 
and  eleven,  as  everything  had  to  be  carried  with  the  army, 
even  wood  and  water.  In  spite  of  all  Miinnich's  efforts,  the 
Russian  cavalry  was  second-rate.    The  army,  encumbered  with 


148  HISTORY  OF  EUSSIA.  [Chap.  VI. 

baggage,  moved  slowly  over  the  interminable  plains  ;  it  seemed 
lost  amid  the  vastness  of  its  accompanying  train.  A  simple 
sergeant  had  as  many  as  ten  chariots,  an  officer  thirty,  the  gen- 
eral, Gustaf  Biren,  three  hundred  beasts  of  burden.  There 
vi^ere  always  ten  thousand  sick  men  in  the  army,  which,  in 
spite  of  the  dispensation  of  the  Holy  Synod,  was  becoming 
exhausted  by  a  rigorous  observance  of  fasts  and  days  of  absti- 
nence. 

In  May,  seventeen  hundred  and  thirty-six,  Miinnich  forced 
the  lines  of  Perekop,  and  pressing  farther  into  the  Crimea  on 
the  twenty-eighth  of  June  pillaged  Bakhtchi-Serai,  the  capital 
of  the  khans,  and  laid  waste  the  Western  Crimea  in  such  a 
way  that  the  prosperity  of  the  country  has  never  recovered  from 
it.  But  the  lack  of  drinking-water  and  fodder  for  the  horses 
obliged  him  to  evacuate  the  peninsula,  and  on  the  twenty-eighth 
of  August  the  walls  of  Perekop  Avere  blown  up,  and  tlie  army 
took  its  departure.  Meanwhile  Lascy  had  forced  Azof  to  sur- 
render, and  went  into  winter-quarters  in  the  Eastern  Ukraina. 
The  next  year,  while  Lascy  was  devastating  the  eastern  part  of 
the  peninsula,  Miinnich  marched  against  the  strong  fortress  of 
Otchakof.  The  accidental  blowing  up  of  the  great  powder- 
magazine  with  six  thousand  Turks  reduced  the  garrison  to  sub- 
mission, and  the  Russian  army,  which  had  been  in  a  precarious 
situation,  was  saved.  In  seventeen  hundred  and  thirty-nine 
Miinnich  gained  a  splendid  victory  at  Stavutchani,  captured 
Khotin,  crossed  the  Pruth,  with  the  boast  that  he  had  avenged 
the  defeat  of  Peter  the  Great,  and  entered  the  capital  of  j\Iol- 
davia.  During  this  time  the  Austrians  were  constantly  beaten. 
Besides,  they  feared  the  Russians  as  neighbors  of  their  ortho- 
dox provinces  of  Transylvania  and  Illyria  more  than  they  did 
the  Turks.  They  insisted  on  the  conclusion  of  peace,  and  at 
Belgrade,  or  Bielgorod  (the  White  City),  in  seventeen  hundred 
and  thirty-nine,  they  ceded  to  Turkey  all  Servia,  with  Orsova 
and  Austrian  Valakhia  ;  the  Russians  obtained  as  a  new  boun- 
dary line  only  a  tongue  of  land  between  the  Bug  and  the  Dnie- 


1730-1741.]  THE   TWO   ANNAS.  149 

per,  and  contented  themselves  with  the  demohtion  of  Perekop, 
uiid  surrendered  all  their  conquests  except  Azof.  Tliis  war 
had  cost  them  more  than  a  hundred  thousand  men.  Tlie  King 
of  France  had  succeeded  m  proving  that  he  knew  how  to  reach 
his  enemies,  even  though  separated  from  him  by  vast  spaces. 
Anna  Ivanovna  found  herself  obliged  to  ask  his  mediation  to 
prevent  a  war  with  Sweden,  which  was  greatly  irritated  by  the 
murder  of  Sinclair,  the  Swedish  ambassador  to  Constantinople. 
Sinclair  had  a  bitter  hatred  against  Russia,  and  on  his  way 
through  Poland  had  spoken  with  too  great  freedom  of  the  Em- 
press. Miinnich,  hearing  of  this,  determined  to  destroy  him, 
and  in  June,  seventeen  hundred  and  thirty-nine,  he  was  way- 
laid and  shot,  and  his  papers  were  taken  from  him.  Although 
Anna  disclaimed  all  knowledge  of  the  crime,  there  was  a 
strong  demand  in  Sweden  for  a  declaration  of  wp,r.  At  the 
instance  of  Ostermann,  and  by  orders  of  Louis  the  Fifteenth, 
Saint  Severin  negotiated  at  Stockholm,  and  the  danger  was 
averted.  The  French  also  brought  about  a  conclusion  of  peace 
with  the  Turks  by  means  of  Villeneuve.  The  Empress  showed 
her  gratitude  to  the  latter  by  offering  him  fifteen  thousand 
thalers.  He,  however,  would  accept  only  the  cross  of  Saint 
Andrew.  Kantemir,  the  Russian  ambassador  at  Paris,  still 
continued  to  warn  his  court  that  "  Russia  being  the  only 
Power  which  could  counterbalance  that  of  France,  the  latter 
would  lose  no  opportunity  of  diminishing  its  strength." 

IVAN  THE  SIXTH. -REGENCY  OF  BIREN  AND  ANNA.- 
RE  VOLUTION  OP  SEVENTEEN  HUNDRED  AND 
FORTY-ONE. 

But  while  danger  from  without  seemed  to  be  averted,  affairs 
within  the  empire  showed  that  the  old  Russian  party  was  not 
yet  brought  to  terms.  In  seventeen  hundred  and  thirty-three 
the  Governor  of  Smolensk,  Prince  Tcherkaski,  a  cousin  of  tlie 
cabinet-minister,  was  arrested  for  plotting  to  raise  the  young 
Duke  of  Holstein  to  the  throne,  and  three  years  later  the  aged 


150  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  VI. 

Prince  Dmitri  Galitsuin  who  was  considered  one  of  the  wisest 
men  in  Russia,  was  sentenced  to  deatli.  Popular  discontent 
against  the  Duke  of  Kurland  grew  more  and  more  pronounced. 
His  insolence  toward  the  nobles,  the  avarice  of  his  favorites,  the 
enormous  sums  spent  upon  pleasiu'es  and  magnificent  build- 
ings, the  cost  of  the  fleet  and  the  losses  in  the  army,  all  caused 
great  uneasiness  throughout  the  country.  Taking  advantao-e 
of  the  immense  drain  upon  the  available  forces  by  the  cam- 
paign of  seventeen  hundred  and  thirty-eight,  the  discontented 
party,  with  the  Dolgorukis  at  their  head,  made  overtures  to 
Sweden  and  Prance.  On  the  supposition  that  Miinnich  would 
be  obliged  to  capitulate  at  Stavutchani,  tlie  Swedes  were  in- 
vited to  land  thirty  thousand  men  in  Russia,  and  raise  the 
standard  of  revolt.  The  Empress  was  to  be  confined  in  a 
monastery,  Biren  removed,  Anna  of  Mecklenburg  and  her  hus- 
band, the  Duke  of  Brunswick,  w^ere  to  be  sent  back  to  Germany, 
and  after  all  the  foreigners  were  exiled,  Naruishkin  and  Elisa- 
beth were  to  be  raised  to  the  throne.  But  Mi'mnich's  ffood 
fortune  saved  him,  and  the  Court  got  wind  of  the  conspiracy. 
The  Dolgorukis  were  punished,  as  was  described  at  the  begin- 
ning of  this  chapter. 

The  minister  who  was  most  strenuous  for  the  severity  of  the 
sentence  against  the  conspirators  was  Artemi  Voluinski,  who 
was  himself  preparing  for  a  still  more  extensive  revolution, 
Voluinski  belonged  to  the  ancient  family  of  the  Naruislikins, 
and  was  related  to  the  younger  branch  of  the  Romanof  line.  Pie 
had  begun  his  career,  during  the  reign  of  Peter  the  Great  as  a 
common  soldier,  and  attracting  Shafirof's  attention,  he  rapidly 
rose.  Peter  appointed  him  Governor  of  Astrakhan  wdiile  he 
was  yet  a  very  young  man.  Solovief  says  :  "Voluinski  was  dis- 
tinguished for  his  great  intellect  and  intolerable  disposition. 
Turbulent,  ostentatious,  proud,  constantly  making  advances, 
insolent  to  his  equals,  ready  for  any  act  of  crying  injustice 
toward  the  poor,  he  drew  upon  himself  the  hatred  of  all. 
When  he  became  governor,  his  distinguishing  characteristics 


1730-1741.]  THE   TWO   ANNAS-  151 

M^ere  avarice,  extortion,  and  his  treatment  of  those  subordinate, 
which  was  worthy  of  the  barbarism  of  Middle  Ages." 

By  means  of  many  spies  he  found  out  those  who  were  op- 
posed to  him.  A  merchant  in  Astrakhan  spoke  uncivilly  of 
his  wife.  Voluinski  invited  him  to  dinner,  and  then  set  his 
dogs  upon  him,  and  sent  him  out,  stripped  naked,  into  the  snow. 
He  plundered  the  convents  of  their  jewels.  He  ruined  the 
rich  manufacturer,  Turtsinof,  and  finally  poisoned  him.  His 
exactions  knew  no  bounds.  Finally  he  gained  the  good-will 
of  the  Duke  of  Kurland,  and  in  seventeen  hundred  and  thirty- 
eight  entered  the  cabinet  of  the  ministry.  He  immediately 
began  to  plan  the  downfall  of  those  who  stood  in  his  way. 
His  greatest  enemy  was  Ostermann,  whom  he  tried  to  traduce 
by  means  of  an  anonymous  letter.  His  hatred  was  directed  not 
alone  a2;ainst  the  Germans.  A  vouno-  Russian  who  was  sec- 
retary  in  the  Academy  of  Sciences  gained  his  ill-will.  He  had 
him  bastinadoed  so  severely  that  he  nearly  died.  The  secre- 
tary was  Trediakovski,  who  was  the  first  to  compose  Russian 
poetry  according  to  the  rules  of  prosody. 

Had  it  not  been  for  Voluinski's  unpopularity,  he  might  have 
succeeded  in  his  designs.  But  his  fall  was  partly  brought 
about  by  the  wit  of  Kurakin,  who  was  a  privileged  character  in 
Court.  He  was  one  day  complimenting  Anna  on  her  reign, 
but  said  that  there  w^as  one  of  Peter's  plans  which  she  had  not 
yet  accomplished.  On  being  asked  which  it  was,  Kurakin 
replied  that  Peter  had  put  the  halter  around  Voluinski's  neck, 
but  it  was  left  for  her  to  draw  it  tight.  The  reply  Avas 
received  with  shouts  of  laughter,  but  two  days  afterward 
the  minister  was  put  under  arrest.  Unfortunately  he  had 
off'ended  Biren,  who  said  to  Anna,  "  One  of  us  must  go." 
When  his  papers,  which  he  had  neglected  to  burn,  were  exam- 
ined, besides  the  proofs  of  his  unlimited  peculations,  there 
were  found  undoubted  evidences  of  his  conspiracy  to  put  him- 
self upon  the  throne.  He  designed  to  throw  Anna  into  a  con- 
vent if  she  refused  his  hand.     The  great  conflagrations  which 


152  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  VL 

bad  broken  out  successively  in  Moscow,  Petersburg,  Vuiborg, 
and  laroslaf  were  also  laid  to  him.  He  was  condenuied  to 
have  his  tongue  cut  out  and  to  be  put  to  death,  and  liis  chil- 
dren were  sent  to  Siberia.  The  son  was  obliged  to  become  a 
common  soldier  and  serve  without  a  term.  His  accomplices 
were  also  punished.  Though  he  was  so  hated  during  his  life- 
time, Voluinski  had  the  fame  of  a  patriot  and  a  martyr  after 
his  death,  because  of  the  universal  dislike  of  Biren,  who  was 
rewarded  with  his  confiscated  estates. 

The  weight  of  the  taxes,  the  rigor  with  which  they  were 
collected,  and  the  frequent  conscriptions  maddened  the  peas- 
ants, whilst  the  disgrace  of  Feofilakt,  of  Tatishtchef,  of  Rumant- 
sof  and  Makarof,  who  were  old  servants  of  Peter  the  Great,  as 
well  as  the  sacrifice  of  Voluinski,  of  Galitsuin  and  the  Dolgo- 
rukis,  seemed  to  threaten  the  whole  nation.  Soon  the  eclioes 
of  the  general  discontent  reached  the  Secret  Court  of  Police. 
The  people  attributed  all  their  misfortunes  to  the  reign  of  a 
woman,  and  repeated  the  proverb,  "  Cities  governed  by  women 
do  not  endure  ;  the  walls  built  by  women  are  never  high." 
Others  said  the  corn  did  not  grow  because  a  woman  ruled. 
They  began  to  regret  the  iron  despotism  of  Peter  the  First, 
and  a  popular  song  exhorts  him  to  leave  his  tomb  and  chastise 
"  Biren,  the  cursed  German."  The  raskolniki  had  predicted 
that  in  seventeen  hundred  and  thirty-three  the  wrath  of  God 
would  fall  on  men,  and  that  Anna  would  be  taken  and  judged 
at  Moscow.  She  reigned,  however,  till  seventeen  hundred  and 
forty,  at  which  time  her  health  began  to  give  way.  Biren's 
scheme  was  to  obtain  from  Anna  Ivanovna  the  investiture  of 
the  regency  din-ing  the  minority  of  the  little  Emperor  Ivan  of 
Brunswick.  Alexis  Bestuzhef,  who  owed  his  fortune  to  Biren, 
assured  him  of  the  support  of  Miinnich  and  of  the  cabinet- 
minister  Tcherkaski.  The  Germans  of  the  Court  said,  with 
Mengden,  "If  the  Dnke  of  Kurland  is  not  appointed  regent, 
the  rest  of  us  Germans  are  lost."  The  Empress  signed  the 
nomination  of  Biren,  and  died  the  next  day.  Her  last  words 
to  her  favorite  were,  "  Ne  bois  "  (fear  nothing). 


1730-1741.]  THE  TWO  ANNAS.  153 

Biren,  however,  had  his  own  reasons  for  feehng  uncomfort- 
able. The  Russians  were  indignant  at  having  a  master  im- 
posed on  them  who  was  a  foreigner  and  a  heretic,  without 
morahty  and  without  talent,  and  whose  only  claim  was  a 
criminal  union  which  dishonored  the  memory  of  their 
Empress.  If  a  foreign  regent  was  necessary,  why  not  have 
the  father  of  the  Emperor?  The  long  minority  of  a  chikl 
who  was  only  three  months  old  at  the  death  of  Anna  alarmed 
every  one,  and  the  thoughts  of  many  turned  towards  the 
daughter  of  Peter  the  Great,  and  her  grandson  Peter  of 
Holstein.  The  reign  of  the  Germans  still  continued;  besides 
Biren,  the  empire  had  to  obey  Prince  Anton  of  Brunswick- 
Bevern,  and  his  wife  Anna  Leopoldovna  of  Mecklenburg, 
governed  in  their  turn  by  Anna's  lover,  the  Saxon  Lynar, 
and  the  prince's  mistress,  Julia  von  Mengden,  Anna's  lady 
of  honor.'  Happily,  however,  these  foreign  masters  never 
thought  of  combining.  The  parents  of  the  Emperor  bore 
Biren's  authority  with  impatience;  and  the  latter,  discontented 
with  their  conduct,  spoke  of  sending  for  Peter  of  Holstein, 
giving  him  his  daughter  in  marriage,  and  marrying  his  son  to 
Elisabeth.  The  fate  of  Menshikof  and  the  Dolgorukis  was 
lost  on  him.  His  clumsy  nonenity  embarrassed  Ostermann 
and  Miinnich ;  and  the  latter,  in  an  interview  with  Anna 
Leopoldovna,  promised  her  to  get  rid  of  the  tyrant.  His 
aide-de-camp,  Manstein,  has  given  us  a  graphic  account  of 
this  coup  d'etat.  On  the  night  of  the  thirtieth  of  November, 
Biren,  who  suspected  nothing,  and  who  in  the  evening  had 
dined  in  company  with  Miinnich,  was  taken  from  his  bed, 
and  wounded  in  more  than  twenty  places  in  his  struggles  to 
escape,  the  Duchess  of  Kurland  was  thrust  almost  naked 
from  the  palace,  all  his  friends  were  arrested,  and  he  was 
sent  to  Pelim,  in  Siberia,  where  he,  with  his  wife  and  three 
children,  lived  on  an  allowance  of  sixteen  rubles  a  day. 

Miinnich  had  given  liberty  and  power  to  the  parents  of  the 
Emperor ;  how  could  they  reward  him  ?     Like  Menshikof,  he 


154  HISTORY  OF  KUSS/A.  [Chap.  VI. 

wished  to  be  Generalissimo,  but  Anton  of  Brunswick  coveted 
the  place.  Miinnich  then  contented  himself  with  the  title  of 
First  Minister;  and  Ostermann  was  recompensed  by  being 
nominated  High  Admiral.  Anton,  Anna,  and  Ostermann 
soon  united  against  their  liberator;  and  Miinnich,  filled  with 
disgust,  sent  in  his  resignation.  The  Germans,  when  they 
attained  the  supreme  power,  conducted  themselves  exactly 
like  the  "  eaglets  "  of  Peter  the  Great :  they  mutually  ban- 
ished and  exterminated  each  other.  The  father  and  mother 
of  the  Emperor,  left  in  possession  of  the  field,  continued  to 
dispute  the  authority,  and  to  reproach  each  other  with  their 
mutual  infidelities.  Ostermann  supported  Anton  against 
Anna.  The  incapacity  of  the  regent  w^as  beyond  belief. 
Not  having  the  energy  to  dress  herself,  nor  attend  to  the 
most  important  State  papers,  Anna  Leopoldovna  would  lie  for 
whole  days  on  a  couch,  her  head  covered  with  a  handkerchief, 
conversing  with  her  intimate  friends.  The  divisions  and 
indifference  of  the  government  threw  open  the  way  to  its 
numerous  enemies ;  all  they  wanted  was  a  chief  wdio  would 
attack  the  Brunswickers  as  they  had  successfully  attacked 
Biren. 

Elisabeth,  daughter  of  Peter  the  Great,  wdio  had  been 
narrowly  w^atched  under  the  hard  rule  of  Anna  Ivanovna  and 
Biren,  raised  her  head  under  this  w^eak  government.  Twenty- 
eight  years  old,  tall  and  very  pretty,  with  great  quickness  of 
mind  though  extremely  ignorant,  lively  and  joyous,  a  bold 
rider  and  fearless  on  the  water,  with  soldier-like  manners,  she 
had  all  the  qualities  necessary  to  a  party  leader.  Her  con- 
fidants Avere  the  brothers  Alexander  and  Peter  Shuvalof, 
Mikhail  Vorontsof,  Razumovski,  Schwartz,  and  her  private 
physician,  Lestocq.  Schwartz  was  an  adventurer  from  Saxony, 
who  had  been  a  musician  in  her  service,  and  afterwards  went 
with  a  caravan  to  China.  On  his  return  he  was  promoted  to 
a  position  in  the  geographical  department  of  the  Academy 
of  Sciences,  and  had  become  a  favorite  of  the  princess.     All 


1730-1741.]  THE   TWO   ANNAS.  155 

these  men,  who  were  able  and  unscrupulous,  were  urging 
her  to  action.  The  regent  feared  her,  but  did  not  have  the 
energy  to  act  on  the  advice  of  Ostermann,  who  besought  her 
to  put  Ehsabeth  under  arrest.  It  was  known  at  the  palace 
that  after  the  downfall  of  Biren  three  regiments  of  guards 
had  hastened  to  swear  fealty  to  her,  believing  the  next  step 
would  be  the  proclamation  of  Peter  the  Great's  daughter; 
and  that  at  Kronstadt  the  soldiers  had  said,  "  Will  no  one 
put  himself  at  our  head  in  favor  of  Elisabeth  Petrovna?" 
She  accepted  the  office  of  godmother  to  their  children,  visited 
the  guards  in  their  barracks,  and  invited  them  to  her  house. 
When  she  passed  through  the  streets  in  her  sledge,  the 
common  o-renadiers  climbed  on  the  back  of  the  carria^'e  and 
whispered  familiarly  in  her  ear.  The  French  ambassador. 
La  Chetardie,  had  orders  to  favor  any  revolution  in  Russia 
that  would  destroy  the  influence  of  the  Germans  and  break 
the  alliance  with  Austria.  He  aided  Ehsabeth  with  advice 
and  money,  and  hoped  to  obtain  for  her  the  support  of  a 
Swedish  diversion.  The  Swedes  had  repented  of  their 
quiescence  during  the  late  wars  with  Poland  and  Turkey, 
and  were  disposed  to  take  their  own  grievances  and  those  of 
Elisabeth  as  a  pretext  for  declaring  war  against  the  Regent. 
The  Swedish  ambassador,  Nolken,  stipulated  only  that  at  her 
accession  the  Tzarevna  should  promise  to  restore  part  of  the 
conquests  of  Peter  the  Great.  This  she  declined  to  do ;  but 
the  Swedes,  nevertheless,  began  hostilities,  and  issued  a 
manifesto  to  the  "glorious  Russian  nation,"  Avhich  they 
wished  to  deliver  from  German  ministers,  and  from  the 
"  heavy  oppression  and  cruel  foreign  tyranny,"  so  as  to 
enable  it  freely  to  elect  "  a  legitimate  and  just  government." 
This  diversion  precipitated  the  crisis.  The  Court  was  by 
this  time  too  well  accustomed  to  plots  for  the  conspirators 
to  delay ;  and,  besides,  the  regiments  upon  whom  Elisabeth 
counted  had  orders  to  proceed  to  the  frontier.  She  had  oidy 
the  choice  between  the  throne  and  the  convent.     In  the  ni2;ht 


156  HISTORY  OF  EUSSIA.  [Chap.  VI. 

of  the  sixth  of  December,  seventeen  hundred  and  forty-one, 
she  went  with  Lestocq  and  Vorontsof  to  the  quarters  of  the 
Preobrazhenski.  "  My  chikb-en,"  she  said  to  them,  "  you  know 
M^iose  daughter  I  am."  "  Mother,  we  are  ready;  we  will  kill 
them  all."  She  forbade  bloodshed,  and  added,  "  I  swear 
to  die  for  you ;  will  you  swear  to  die  for  me  ?  "  They  all 
swore.  Anna  Leopoldovna,  Prince  Anton,  the  young  Emperor 
in  his  cradle,  Mi'innich,  Ostermann,  Lewenwold,  and  the 
Meiigdens  were  arrested  during  the  night.  Elisabeth  was 
proclaimed  absolute  Empress,  and  the  nobles  of  the  empire 
hastened  to  give  in  their  adhesion  to  the  new  order  of  things. 
Ivan  the  Sixth  was  confined  at  Schliisselburg  ;  Anna,  with  her 
husband  and  children,  at  Kholmogory,  where  she  died  in  sev- 
enteen hundred  and  forty-six.  A  tribunal  was  held,  and  the' 
Dolgorukis  were  among  the  judges.  Ostermann  was  con- 
demned to  be  broken  on  the  wheel,  Miinnich  to  be  quar- 
tered, and  the  others  to  decapitation.  The  Empress,  however, 
spared  their  lives.  Ostermann  was  exiled  to  Berezof,  where 
he  died  five  years  later,  and  Miinnich  to  Pelini,  where  he  lived 
in  the  house  he  had  planned  for  Biren.  ]\Iany  of  the  exiles  of 
the  preceding  reign  were  recalled,  and  the  Birens  were  allowed 
to  reside  in  laroslavl.  One  of  the  brothers  of  the  Duke  of 
Kurland  returned  to  his  estates  in  Livonia,  where  he  died  in 
seventeen  hundred  and  forty-six.  Gustaf  Biren  died  the  same 
year  in  Saint  Petersburg.  General  von  Bismark  was  appointed 
commander  of  the  troops  in  the  Ukraiua  in  seventeen  hun- 
dred and  forty-seven. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

ELISABETH  PETROVNA. 

1741-1762. 

Keactiox  against  the  Germans  :  War  with  Sweden  (1741-1743). — 
Austrian  Succession  :  War  against  Frederic  the  Second  (1756- 
X762), — Reforms  under  Elisabeth  :  French  Influence. 


REACTION    AGAINST  THE   GERMANS:    WAR  WITH 
SWEDEN. 

IN  sixteen  hundred  and  forty-two,  at  the  time  when  Ehsa- 
beth  was  crowned  at  Moscow,  she  sent  to  Holstein  for  the 
son  of  her  sister,  Anna  Petrovna,  and  of  the  Duke  Karl  Frie- 
drich.  The  grandson  of  Peter  the  Great  embraced  orthodoxy, 
took  the  name  of  Peter  Fe.odorovitch,  was  proclaimed  heir  to 
the  throne,  and  in  seventeen  hundred  and  forty-four  the  Em- 
press married  him  to  the  Princess  Sophia  of  Anhalt-Zerbst, 
afterwards  Catherine  the  Second.  Thus  the  power  which  had 
been  diverted  to  the  Ivanian  branch  of  the  Romanof  dynasty, 
to  Anna  of  Kurland  and  her  great-nephew  of  Brunswick,  re- 
turned to  the  immediate  family  of  Peter  the  Great  in  the  per- 
son of  Elisabeth  as  Empress,  and  of  her  nephew  of  Holstein  as 
heir  to  the  throne. 

The  revolution  of  seventeen  hundred  and  forty-one  meant 
much  more  than  the  substitution  of  the  Petrovian  for  the  Iva- 
nian branch  ;  it  signified  the  triumph  of  the  national  over  the 
German  party,  the  reaction  of  the  Russian  element  against 
the  hard  rule  of  the  foreigners,  and  thus  it  was  understood  by 
the  people.     The  orthodox  clergy,  persecuted  by  the  heretics, 


158  HISTORY   OF  EUSSIA.  [Chap.  VII, 

took  its  revenge  in  the  sermons  of  Amvrosi  lushkevitch.  Arch- 
bishop of  Novgorod,  against  the  "  emissaries  of  the  devil,"  and 
against  "  Beelzebub  and  his  angels."  The  poet  Lomonosof 
hails  in  Elisabeth  the  Astrgea  who  had  "  brought  back  the 
golden  age,"  the  Moses  who  "  had  snatched  Russia  in  one 
night  from  her  Egyptian  slavery,"  the  Noah  "  who  had  saved 
her  from  the  foreign  deluge."  Citizens  and  soldiers  rose 
against  the  Germans ;  there  were  revolts  at  Saint  Petersburg, 
and  in  the  army  of  Finland,  against  the  foreign  officers,  on 
whom  the  men  wished  to  inflict  the  punishment  of  Ostermann 
and  Miinnich.  At  Court,  Finch,  the  English  ambassador, 
Botta,  the  Austrian  ambassador,  and  Lynar,  the  Saxon  am- 
bassador, had  compromised  themselves  under  the  preceding- 
dynasty  ;  therefore  all  the  sympathies  of  the  nation  and  the 
Tsaritsa  were  for  Mardefeld,  ambassador  of  Prussia,  and  espe- 
cially for  La  Chetardie,  whom  they  looked  on  as  one  of  the  au- 
thors of  the  revolution,  and  whose  hands  the  officers  of  the  guard 
came  to  kiss,  addressing  him  as  "  their  father."  The  Austro- 
Russian  alliance,  consolidated  under  Catherine  the  First  and 
Anna  Ivanovna,  seemed  broken. 

This  good  understanding  between  the  courts  of  France  and 
Russia  was  imperilled  by  the  affturs  of  Sweden.  The  cabi- 
net of  Versailles  had  only  been  able  to  persuade  its  Scandina- 
vian ally  into  war,  by  hinting  that  the  new  Empress  would 
cede  back  certain  territory,  but  Elisabeth,  daughter  of  Peter 
the  Great,  could  not  renounce  the  conquests  of  her  father, 
which  even  Anna  Leopoldovna,  a  foreign  princess,  had  main- 
tained at  the  cost  of  war.  The  Swedes,  who  pretended  to  have 
taken  up  arms  in  favor  of  Elisabeth,  continued  the  war  against 
their  former  protegee.  This  war  had  no  result  except  to  show 
the  weakness  of  the  Sweden  of  Charles  the  Twelfth  when 
pitted  against  the  new  Russia.  The  Scandinavian  armies 
proved  themselves  very  unworthy  of  their  former  reputation. 
Elisabeth's  generals,  Lnscy  and  Keith,  subdued  all  the  strong- 
holds in  Finland.     At  Helsingfors  seventeen  thousand  Swedes 


1741-1762.]  ELISABETH  PETROVNA.  159 

laid  down  their  arms  before  a  hardly  more  numerous  Russian 
force.  The  Swedes  then  offered  the  crown  to  Ehsabeth's 
nephew  Peter,  but  it  was  refused.  Ehsabeth  had  other  plans 
for  him.  By  the  treaty  of  Abo,  in  August,  seventeen  hundred 
and  forty-three,  the  Empress  acquired  South  Finland  as  far  as 
the  river  Kiiunen,  and  caused  Adolph  Friedrich,  Bishop  of  Lii- 
beck,  administrator  of  the  duchy  of  Holstein,  and  one  of  her 
allies,  to  be  elected  Prince  Royal  of  Sweden,  in  place  of  the 
Prince  Royal  of  Denmark,  in  whose  favor  the  Swedish  peas- 
antry had  risen. 

AUSTRIAN    SUCCESSION:    WAR    AGAINST   FREDERIC 

THE   SECOND. 

The  war  of  the  Austrian  Succession  had  broken  out  in 
Europe.  For  whom  would  Russia  declare,  —  for  Maria  The- 
resa, or  for  France  and  its  allies  ?  Bestuzhef-Riumin,  who 
had  been  disgraced  by  Biren,  but  had  returned  under  the  pro- 
tection of  Lestocq,  and  was  now  Vice-Chancellor  of  the  empire, 
was  on  the  side  of  Austria.  Vorontsof,  associated  with  him  as 
Vice-Chancellor,  trimmed  between  both  parties  ;  La  Chetardie 
and  Mardefeld,  ambassadors  of  Louis  the  Fifteenth  and  Fred- 
eric the  Second,  in  order  to  draw  Elisabeth  into  the  Franco- 
Prussian  Alliance  and  overthrow  Bestuzhef,  were  intriguino^ 
with  the  Court  physician,  Lestocq,  and  the  Princess  of  Zerbst, 
mother  of  Sophia  of  Anhalt,  who  in  July,  seventeen  himdred 
and  forty-four,  became  the  Tsesarevna,  or  Grand  Duchess  Cath- 
erine. Lestocq,  on  his  side,  left  no  stone  unturned  to  discover 
some  political  plot  in  which  he  might  involve  his  rivals,  the 
Bestuzhefs.  At  last  his  opportunity  arrived.  A  lieutenant  by 
the  name  of  Berger,  on  service  at  Saint  Petersburg,  was  detailed 
to  Soliamsk,  in  Permia,  to  guard  Count  Lewenwold,  who  was 
there  in  banishment.  When  Madame  Lapukhin  learned  of  Ber- 
ger's  intended  departure,  she  sent  by  him  an  assurance  of  her 
undying  affection  for  the  Count,  and  bade  him  hope  for  better 
things.     Berger  informed  Lestocq  of  the  message,  which  had 


160  HISTORY    OF   KUSSIA.  [Chap.  Yll. 

been  delivered  by  Madame  Lapukhin's  son,  formerly  one  of 
Anna's  chamberlains.  Madame  Lapukhin  and  her  son  were 
arrested  on  the  night  of  the  fourth  of  August,  seventeen  hun- 
dred and  forty-three.  The  Empress,  who  was  always  on  the 
watch  for  conspiracies,  summoned  a  commission  composed  of 
the  terrible  Utchakof,  General  Trubetskoi,  Lestocq,  and  Demi- 
dof,  all  unfriendly  to  Bestuzhef.  Though  nothing  worse  than 
certain  hasty  speeches  could  be  proved  against  those  who  were 
implicated,  the  Council  felt  that  they  had  gone  too  far  to  retreat 
in  safety.  The  confidential  relationship  which  Madame  Bestu- 
zhef, the  Vice-Chancellor's  sister-in-law,  and  Madame  Lapukhin 
held  with  the  Austrian  ambassador,  Marquis  Botta  d'Adorno, 
was  taken  as  a  pretext  for  an  investigation.  Botta  had  left  Saint 
Petersburg  eight  months  before,  and  was  now  accredited  to 
Berlin.  It  was  claimed  that  Botta  had  expressed  his  opinion 
that  there  would  soon  be  a  change  in  Russia,  and  he  was  also 
charged  with  trying  to  induce  the  King  of  Prussia  to  bring  the 
unfortunate  Brunswick  family  again  to  the  throne.  Bestuzhef's 
private  papers  were  searched,  but  nothing  whatsoever  was  found 
to  implicate  him.  The  persons  arrested,  however,  in  order  to 
shield  themselves,  accused  Botta  of  spending  money  to  further 
the  plot,  and  they  declared  that  the  only  reason  for  which  he  had 
left  Russia  was  to  win  Frederic  to  support  Anna.  At  last  a  grand 
council  was  assembled,  under  a  pledge  of  secrecy,  to  judge  those 
who  had  been  arrested.  One  senator  thought  that  a  simple 
death-penalty  was  sufficient,  since  the  accused  had  not  as  yet  pro- 
ceeded to  take  extreme  measures.  But  the  Prince  of  llomburg 
sprang  to  his  feet,  and  claimed  that  the  guilty  must  be  dealt 
with  to  the  full  extent  of  the  law.  In  this  he  was  seconded 
by  Trubetskoi  and  Lestocq.  The  Empress,  however,  pardoned 
all  but  seven,  who  suffered  the  punishment  of  the  knout  and 
exile.  In  addition,  Madame  Lapukhin,  her  husband  and  son, 
together  with  Madame  Bestuzhef,  were  horribly  mutilated. 

Erederic,  in  order  to  show  complaisance  to  the  Empress, 
forbade  Botta  the  Court,  and  advised  her  to  send  the  young 


1741-1762.]  ELISABETH   PETROVNA.  161 

Ivan  far  into  the  interior,  where  he  would  never  be  heard  from 
again.  This  was  actually  done  the  following  year,  wiicn  the 
prisoner  was  taken  to  the  vicinity  of  Arkhangel.  Although 
the  Queen  of  Hungary  was  firmly  convinced  of  the  inno- 
cence of  her  ambassador,  yet  as  she  felt  that  it  was  of  the 
greatest  importance  to  preserve  the  favor  of  Elisabeth,  she 
confined  Botta  in  one  of  her  castles ;  but  the  following  year, 
when  Bestuzhef  had  triumphed  over  Lestocq,  he  was  set  at 
liberty  and  thoroughly  indemnified  for  the  punishment  he  had 
endured.  The  efforts  of  Lestocq  to  ruin  Bestuzhef  had  failed  ; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Chancellor  neglected  no  means  to 
destroy  his  enemies.  He  had  his  black  cabinet,  where  he 
looked  over  the  despatches  of  the  foreign  ambassadors  ;  he  found 
himself  able  to  place  under  the  sovereign's  eyes  extracts  from 
the  cipher  letters  of  La  Chetardie,  proving  that  Lestocq  was  a 
pensioner  of  France,  and  that  La  Chetardie  had  spoken  insult- 
ingly of  Elisabeth  in  his  political  correspondence.  As  soon  as 
Elisabeth  read  the  very  free  criticism  which  La  Chetardie  had 
passed  upon  her  abilities,  her  modes  of  conducting  business, 
and  her  amours,  the  extraordinary  friendliness  which  she  had 
before  shown  him  was  changed  to  corresponding  hatred.  She 
also  showed  her  displeasure  with  the  Princess  of  Zerbst.  She 
declared  that  she  would  never  again  take  a  drop  of  Lestocq's 
medicine.  On  the  seventeenth  of  June,  seventeen  hundred  and 
forty-four,  the  French  ambassador  received  orders  to  quit  the 
capital  within  twenty-four  hours,  and  Russia  within  eight  days, 
and  the  Grand  Duchess's  mother  was  sent  back  to  Germany. 
As  a  reward  for  his  great  services,  Bestuzhef  was  raised  to  the 
Chancellorship  with  great  ceremonies,  on  the  fifteenth  of  July. 
Later,  in  seventeen  hundred  and  forty-nine,  Lestocq  was  sum- 
moned before  a  commission,  put  to  the  torture,  and  banished 
to  Uglitch,  and  afterwards  to  listing  Viliki,  near  Arkhangel, 
where  his  wife  accompanied  him.  There  he  remained  until 
seventeen  hundred  and  sixty-two.  Bestuzhef  triumphed  ;  it 
seemed  as  if  Russia  were  going  to  interfere  on  behalf  of  .Maria 

VOL.    II.  11 


162  HISTOKY   OP   EUSSIA.  [Chap.  VII. 

Theresa.  But  time  passed  on.  Russia,  satisfied  with  the  sort 
of  intimidation  that  it  exercised  over  all  the  European  courts, 
did  not  care  to  go  into  action.  Bestuzhef  and  the  Vice-Chan- 
cellor  Vorontsof  played  with  the  various  courts,  the  one  hold- 
ing out  hopes  to  Austria,  the  other  allowing  himself  to  be 
cajoled  by  D'Allion,  La  Chetardie's  successor. 

France,  abandoned  by  its  allies,  had  transported  the  war 
into  the  Low  Countries,  where  Maurice  de  Saxe,  the  former 
Duke  of  Kurland,  gained  a  series  of  victories.  Li  seventeen 
hundred  and  forty-six  an  Austro-Russian  treaty  of  alliance  was 
concluded ;  England  promised  subsidies  to  Elisabeth,  but  it 
was  not  till  seventeen  hundred  and  forty-eight  tliat  thirty 
thousand  Russians,  under  Repnin,  crossed  Germany  and  took 
up  a  position  on  the  Rhine.  They  served  only  to  hasten  the 
Peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle,  which  was  signed  in  seventeen  hun- 
dred and  forty-eight,  and  returned  to  Russia  without  having 
fired  a  shot  or  risked  the  prestige  of  the  empire. 

D'Allion  had  been  recalled  in  seventeen  hundred  and  forty- 
seven,  and  had  no  successor  at  Saint  Petersburg.  However,  the 
same  Bestuzhef  who  had  caused  La  Chetardie  to  be  expelled, 
and  concluded  the  Austrian  alliance,  had  proclaimed,  as  far  back 
as  seventeen  hundred  and  forty-four,  that  Prussia  was  more  dan- 
gerous than  France,  "  because  of  its  near  neighborhood  and  its 
late  accession  of  strength."  Elisabeth  hated  Frederic.  "  The 
King  of  Prussia,"  she  said  to  Lord  Hyndford,  "  is  certainly  a 
bad  prince,  who  has  no  fear  of  God  before  his  eyes  ;  he  turns 
holy  things  into  ridicule,  he  never  goes  to  church,  he  is  the 
Nadir-Shah  of  Prussia."  He  had  no  religion,  he  had  not  been 
consecrated,  he  did  not  spare  epigrams  about  the  Empress. 
The  "  overweening  neighbor  "  had  shown  off  his  importance  at 
Aix-la-Chapelle,  and  had  opposed  the  admission  of  a  Russian 
plenipotentiary  to  the  congress.  Other  things  led  to  a  sort  of 
diplomatic  rupture.  Finally,  on  the  seventeenth  of  May,  sev- 
enteen hundred  and  fifty-six,  the  Chancellor  read  to  the  Em- 
press a  statement  of  foreign  affairs.     He  reminded  her  that 


FREDERIC    THE    GREAT    OF    PRUSSIA. 


1741-1762.]  ELISABETH  PETROVNA.  163 

the  new  growth  of  the  Prussian  power  was  unfavorable  to 
Russia,  and  pointed  out  how  l^rederic  the  Second,  who  had 
raised  his  army  from  eighty  thousand  to  two  hundred  tliou- 
sand  soldiers,  who  had  deprived  Austria  of  Silesia,  who  from 
the  "  large  revenues  "  of  the  latter  province  and  the  "  millions 
levied  on  Saxony  "  had  constituted  a  great  war-fund  for  him- 
self, who  coveted  Hanover  and  Kurland,  and  hoped  for  the 
dismemberment  of  Poland,  had  consequently  become  "  the 
most  dangerous  of  neighbors."  He  concluded  by  proving 
the  necessity  of  reducing  the  forces  of  the  King  of  Prussia, 
and  of  supporting  the  States  menaced  by  him.  This  patriotic 
anxiety,  this  wholesome  mistrust  which  Bestuzhef  felt,  might 
well  have  seemed  worthy  to  become  the  traditional  policy  of 
Russia. 

At  this  moment  it  was  still  believed  at  Saint  Petersburg 
that  in  this  war,  as  in  the  last,  Prussia  would  be  the  ally  of 
Prance,  against  Austria  and  England.  The  reversal  of  French 
policy  had  not  been  expected.  Bestuzhef  was  in  too  great 
haste  to  conclude  a  treaty  of  subsidies  with  England.  Voront- 
sof  warned  the  Empress  to  beware  lest  the  Russian  troops 
should  be  employed  in  favor  of  that  very  Prussia  whom  she 
wished  to  fight.  The  event  justified  his  prediction,  confounded 
the  plans  and  the  provisions  of  Bestuzhef,  and  brought  about 
his  fall.  When  Prussia  became  the  ally  of  England,  and  Aus- 
tria of  Prance,  Russia  found  itself  indirectly  also  allied  to 
the  latter  power.  Diplomatic  relations  between  the  courts 
were  renewed.  It  was  then  that  the  secret  missions  of  Val- 
croissant,  of  the  Scotch  Douglas,  and  the  mysterious  Chevalier 
d'Eon  took  place  ;  that  L'Hopital  became  the  Prench  am- 
bassador in  Russia  ;  and  that  a  private  correspondence  was 
exchanged  between  Louis  the  Pifteenth  and  the  Empress 
Elisabeth. 

Prederic  was  alarmed  on  hearing  the  decision  Russia  had 
made ;  he  feared  nothing  so  much  as  the  invasion  of  its  "  un- 
disciplined hordes."    It  was  to  secure  the  friendship  of  "  these 


164  HISTORY   OF  RUSSIA.  [Chap.  VII. 

barbarians  "  that  he  had  arranged  in  seventeen  hundred  and 
forty-four  the  marriage  of  Peter  Feodorovitch  with  Sophia  of 
Anhalt.  His  invasion  of  Saxony  put  the  Russian  army  in 
motion.  In  seventeen  hundred  and  fifty-seven,  the  year  of 
Rosbach,  eighty-three  thousand  Muscovites,  under  the  Gene- 
rahssimo  Apraxin,  crossed  the  frontier  of  Prussia,  occupied  the 
province  of  Eastern  Prussia,  slowly  advanced  in  the  direction 
of  the  Oder,  committing  the  most  horrible  excesses,  and  c^'ushed 
the  corps  of  Lewald  at  Gross-Jiigersdorff.  The  Prussian  loss 
was  four  thousand  six  hundred  killed,  six  hundred  taken  pris- 
oners, and  twenty-nine  guns.  But,  to  the  astonishment  of  all 
Europe,  instead  of  following  up  his  advantages,  Apraxin  re- 
traced his  steps  and  recrossed  the  Niemen.  The  ambassadors 
of  France  and  Austria  suspected  treachery,  and  clamored  for 
his  dismissal  from  the  chief  command.  His  papers  were  ex- 
amined, and  were  found  gravely  to  compromise  the  Grand 
Duchess  Catherine  and  the  Chancellor  Bestuzhef-Riumin, 
who,  expecting  Elisabeth's  immediate  death,  and  knowing  that 
Peter  would  have  little  favor  to  show  him,  was  planning  to 
have  the  young  son  of  Catherine  appointed  Tsar,  with  his 
mother  as  regent.  The  latter  was  deprived  of  his  office  and 
dignities,  and  exiled  to  one  of  his  estates,  one  hundred  and 
twenty  versts  from  Moscow,  whither  his  wife  and  son  followed 
him.  His  place  was  filled  by  Vorontsof.  Catherine  threw 
herself  at  the  Empress's  feet,  assuring  her  of  her  innocence, 
and  begged  her  permission  to  quit  Russia  and  return  to  her 
mother.  The  Empress  finally  forgave  her  and  restored  her  to 
favor. 

In  January,  seventeen  hundred  and  fifty-eight,  Fermor,  who 
after  Apraxin's  dismissal  had  taken  the  command  of  the  Rus- 
sian army,  again  invaded  the  Prussian  states,  took  Konigsberg, 
and  in  August  bombarded  Kiistrin  on  the  Oder.  Frederic  the 
Second  hastened  to  Silesia,  made  a  junction  with  Graf  Dohna, 
and  thus  found  himself  at  the  head  of  thirty-two  thousand 
men,  in ,  presence  of  eighty-nine  thousand  Russians,  near  the 


1741-1762.]  ELISABETH  PETROVNA.  165 

village  of  Zorndorff,  which  lies  a  short  distance  from  Kiistriii. 
In  spite  of  the  stoical  bravery  of  the  Muscovites,  and  the  de- 
feat of  the  Prussian  left  wing,  their  inexperience,  the  weakness 
of  their  commander,  and  the  superiority  of  the  cavalry  of 
General  Seidlitz  caused  them  to  be  beaten.  They  lost  five 
generals,  nine  hundred  and  thirty-five  other  officers,  twenty 
thousand  five  hundred  and  ninety  men,  one  hundl-ed  cannon, 
and  thirty  flags.  The  Prussians  lost  three  hundred  and 
twejity-four  officers  and  eleven  thousand  men.  But  Frederic 
the  Second  had  not  yet  reached  his  aim,  as  his  enemies  were 
by  no  means  annihilated,  and  were  able  to  make  an  imposing 
retreat. 

In  seventeen  hundred  and  fifty-nine  Soltuikof,  Fermor's 
successor,  returned  to  the  Oder,  defeated  the  Prussians  at  Palt- 
zig,  near  Zilllichau,  and  made  his  entry  into  Frankfort.  Fred- 
eric again  came  to  the  help  of  his  lieutenants,  and  encountered 
the  Russians  near  Kiinersdorff.  This  time  his  army  was  sim- 
ply crushed  under  the  enormous  weight  of  the  JMuscovite 
masses.  He  lost  eight  thousand  men  and  one  hundred  and 
seventy-two  guns.  He  himself  escaped  with  great  difficulty 
from  the  field  of  battle,  with  forty  hussars.  From  the  battle- 
field he  wrote  to  his  minister,  Finkenstein  :  "  Only  three 
thousand  men  now  remain  to  me  of  my  army  of  forty-eight 
thousand.  All  are  in  flight ;  it  is  a  cruel  blow.  The  conse- 
quences of  the  battle  will  be  worse  than  the  losses  which  it 
has  already  caused.  I  no  longer  have  any  resource,  and  I 
think  all  is  lost.  I  shall  not  survive  the  fall  of  my  father- 
land. I  bid  you  farewell  forever."  But  the  disagreement 
between  the  Austrians  and  the  Russians  saved  him.  He 
was  allowed  time  to  collect  his  scattered  forces,  and  soon  he 
saw  himself  at  the  head  of  twenty  thousand  men.  At  this 
moment  he  thought  of  suicide.  The  disaster  of  Kiinersdorff 
weighed  on  him  during  the  remainder  of  the  war.  Hence- 
forth he  could  only  hold  himself  on  the  defensive,  without 
daring  to  descend  into  the  plain. 


166  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  VII. 

The  allies  were  not  less  exhausted  than  Frederic.  Elisaheth 
alone  declined  to  speak  of  peace  till  she  had  "reduced  the 
forces "  of  Frederic,  and  secured  the  annexation  of  Eastern 
Prussia.  Soltuikof  was  made  field-marshal,  and  Prince  Ga- 
litsuin,  general-in-chief.  All  the  lieutenant-generals  received 
the  order  of  Saint  Andrew,  and  each  soldier  was  munificently 
rewarded.  In  seventeen  hundred  and  sixty  the  Russians  en- 
tered Berlin  after  a  short  resistance,  pillaged  the  State  coff'ers 
and  the  arsenals,  and  destroyed  the  manulactories  of  arms  and 
powder.  The  following  year  they  conquered  Pomerania,  and 
Rumantsof  took  Kolberg.  This  was  the  last  disaster  that 
Frederic  suffered  at  the  hands  of  the  Russians.  He  would 
have  been  lost  if  this  terrible  war  had  continued  ;  he  was 
saved  by  Elisabeth's  sudden  death,  which  took  place  on  the 
twenty-fifth  of  December  (old  style),  seventeen  hundred  and 
sixty-one.  Still  his  power  was  much  weakened.  The  Em- 
press had  left  Prussia  less  dangerous  and  threatening  than  she 
had  found  it. 

REFORMS  UNDER  ELISABETH:  FRENCH  INFLUENCE. 
The  reign  of  Elisabeth  was  marked  by  an  increase  of  ortho- 
dox zeal.  In  spite  of  her  dissolute  manners,  she  was  much 
influenced  by  the  priests,  though  she  still  clung  to  her  old 
superstitions.  In  seventeen  hundred  and  forty-two  the  Holy 
Synod  ordered  the  suppression  of  the  Armenian  churches  in 
the  two  capitals,  and  hoped  likewise  to  suppress  the  dissenting 
churches  on  the  Nevski  Prospekt.  In  the  Tatar  regions  some 
of  the  mosques  were  closed,  and  the  erection  of  new  ones  for- 
bidaen.  The  intolerance  of  the  bishops  and  missionaries 
caused  the  Pagan  or  Mussulman  tribes  of  the  Mordva,  the 
Tchereniisa,  the  Tchuvashi,  and  the  Meshtchera  to  revolt. 
Thirty-five  thousand  Jews  were  expelled  on  the  ground  that 
they  were  "  the  enemies  of  Christ  our  Saviour,  and  did  nmch 
evil  to  our  subjects."  To  the  observation  of  the  senate  that 
she  was  ruining  commerce  and  the  empire,  Elisabeth  replied, 


1741-1762.]  ELISABETH   PETROVNA.  1G7 

"  I  desire  no  gain  from  the  foes  of  Christ."  The  fanaticism 
of  the  raskolniki  rose  by  contact  with  the  fanaticism  of  the 
officials.  Fifty-three  men  burned  themselves  at  once  near 
listing,  and  one  hundred  and  seventy-two  near  Tomsk  in 
Siberia. 

On  tlie  other  hand,  the  morals  of  the  clergy  were  corret^ted, 
and  attention  paid  to  their  education.  The  monasteries  were 
enjoined  to  send  pupils  to  the  Ecclesiastical  Academy  of  Mos- 
cow, which  complained  that  at  present  its  number  consisted 
of  only  five.  Rebellion  and  drunkenness  were  repressed  by 
stripes  and  chains.  The  fair  of  the  priests  was  put  down,  and 
all  popes  who  hired  themselves  out  in  public  were  whipped. 
The  laws  of  Peter  the  First  against  persons  who  walked  about 
and  talked  in  church  were  revived.  The  tobacco  pouches  of 
those  Avho  used  snuff  in  church  were  confiscated.  Inspectors 
nominated  by  the  bishops  obliged  the  peasants  to  clean  their 
holv  imasres,  the  dirtiness  of  which  was  shockino;  to  stran":ers. 
Catechisms  were  distributed  in  the  churches,  and  a  new  cor- 
rected edition  of  the  Bible  was  exposed  for  sale.  Theological 
studies,  when  they  were  not  absolutely  neglected,  were  still 
very  puerile.  At  the  Ecclesiastical  Academy  of  Moscow  they 
discussed  wdiether  the  angels  think  by  analysis  or  by  synthe- 
sis, and  what  is  the  nature  of  the  light  of  glory  in  the  future 
life. 

The  senate  was  re-established,  with  the  functions  given  it 
by  Peter  the  Great,  of  which  it  had  been  deprived  by  the 
High  Council  of  Catherine  the  First,  or  the  Cabinet  of  Anna 
Ivanovna.  Trade  was  encouraged.  The  tchin,  or  rank,  of 
assessor,  of  secretary  of  colleges,  and  of  councillor  of  state, 
was  given  to  manufacturers  of  cloth,  linen,  silk,  and  cotton. 
In  seventeen  hundred  and  fifty-three  the  custom-houses  of  the 
interior  were  suppressed,  as  well  as  many  toll  duties.  Agri- 
cultural banks  were  founded  which  loaned  money  to  landliold- 
ers  at  six  per  cent ;  while  private  individuals  were  raising 
usurious  interest  to  fifteen  or  even  twenty  per  cent.     Sons  of 


168  HISTOEY  OP   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  VII. 

merchants  were  sent  to  study  trade  and  book-keeping  in  Hol- 
land. New  mines  were  discovered,  and  the  commerce  with 
the  far  East  increased  rapidly.  Siberia  began  to  be  peopled. 
Attempts  were  made  to  colonize  Southern  Russia,  now  freed 
from  the  prospect  of  Tatar  incursions,  with  Slavs  who  had 
fled  from  the  Turkish  or  Tatar  provinces.  On  the  territory 
acquired  by  Anna  Ivanovna,  between  the  Bug  and  the  Oder, 
the  agricultural  and  military  colony  of  Novaia  Serbia,  or  New 
Servia,  was  founded,  which  furnished  four  regiments  of  light 
cavalry. 

Legislation  became  less  severe.  Ehsabeth  imagined  that 
she  had  abolished  the  penalty  of  death,  but  the  knout  of  lier 
executioners  killed  as  well  as  the  axe.  Those  who  survived 
flagellation  were  sent,  with  their  nose  or  ears  cut,  to  the  pub- 
lic works.  Torture  was  employed  only  in  the  gravest  cases. 
It  is  estimated  that  during  her  reign  more  than  eighty  thou- 
sand were  knouted  or  sent  to  Siberia.  But  if  the  civil  code 
did  not  advance,  a  code  of  procedure  and  a  code  of  criminal 
investigation  were  completed.  The  police  had  hard  work  to 
maintain  even  a  show  of  order  in  this  rude  society.  The 
government  was  powerless  to  stop  brigandage  on  the  great 
highways,  pirates  still  captured  ships  on  the  Volga,  and 
armed  bands  gave  battle  to  regular  troops.  Moscow  and 
Saint  Petersburg  were  like  woods  of  ill-fame.  Thieves  had 
lost  none  of  their  audacity,  and  one  of  them,  Vanka  Kain, 
the  Russian  Cartouche,  is  the  hero  of  a  whole  cycle  of  songs. 
Edicts  were  promulgated  to  prevent  the  keeping  of  bears  in 
both  capitals,  and  to  hinder  them  from  being  allowed  to  roam 
at  night  through  the  towns  of  the  provinces.  Public  baths 
common  to  both  men  and  women  were  forbidden^in  the  large 
towns. 

Under  the  reign  of  Elisabeth  the  real  minister  of  literature 
and  the  fine  arts  was  her  young  favorite,  Count  Ivan  Shu- 
valof.  He  founded,  in  seventeen  hundred  and  fifty-five,  at  the 
centre  of  the  empire,  the  University  of  Moscow,  whose  small 


STREET    IN    ST.    PETERSBURG. 


17-il-17G2.]  ELISABETH   PETROVNA.  IGO 

beginnings  have  excited  the  contempt  of  German  historians, 
but  of  which  Nikolai  Turgenief  was  able  to  say  in  eighteen 
hundred  and  forty-four,  that  "  never  in  any  country  has  any 
institution  been  more  useful  and  more  fruitful  in  good  re- 
sults ;  even  to-day  it  is  rare  to  find  a  man  who  writes  his  own 
language  correctly,  a  well-educated  and  enlightened  official,  an 
upright  and  firm  magistrate,  who  has  not  been  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Moscow."  Shuvalof  desired  that  every  student,  what- 
ever his  origin,  should  carry  a  sword,  and  bear  the  rank  of 
the  tenth  degree  of  the  tchin,  corresponding  to  major  in  the 
army ;  doctors  were  given  the  eighth  degree.  Ten  professors 
taught  the  three  branches  of  jurisprudence,  medicine,  and 
philosophy.  He  likewise  planned  to  open  two  universities, 
at  Saint  Petersburg  and  at  Baturin,  and  gymnasia  and  schools 
in  all  the  governments  ;  he  established  schools  on  the  military 
frontier  of  the  south,  and  one  at  Orenburg  for  the  children  of 
the  exiles.  He  sent  young  men  abroad  to  finish  their  studies 
in  medicine.  In  seventeen  hundred  and  fifty-eight  he  en- 
dowed the  Academy  of  Fine  Arts  at  Saint  Petersbin-g,  and 
over  it  he  set  French  masters.  The  painter  Louis  Joseph  de 
Lorraine,  the  sculptor  Gilet,  the  architect  Valois,  and  later 
Devely  and  Louis  Jean  Francois  Lagrenee,  chief  painter  to  the 
Court,  were  among  them. 

Saint  .Petersburg,  which  in  seventeen  hundred  and  fifty 
contained  only  seventy-four  thousand  inhabitants,  began  to 
look  like  a  capital.  The  Italian  Rastrelli  built  the  Winter 
Palace,  the  Monastery  of  Smolna,  which  became  under  Cath- 
erine the  Second  an  institution  for  the  daughters  of  the  aris- 
tocracy, and  the  Palace  of  the  xVcademy  of  Sciences,  and 
traced  the  plan  of  Tsarskoe-Selo,  the  Russian  Versailles. 

Under  the  presidency  of  Kirill  Razumovski,  the  brother  of 
Elisabeth's  morganatic  husband,  the  Academy  of  Sciences, 
which  had  been  founded  by  Peter  the  Great  and  Catherine 
the  First,  began  to  make  itself  known.  In  spite  of  the  inter- 
minable contests  excited  by  Lomonosof  between  its  German 


170  HISTORY   OP   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  VII. 

and  Russian  professors,  it  continued  to  publish  both  books 
and  translations. 

The  Academicians  Bauer  and  Mi'iller  devoted  themselves  to 
the  origin  of  Russia.  Tatishtchef,  formerly  governor  of  Astra- 
khan, wrote  the  first  history  of  the  monarchy.  Lomonosof, 
Professor  of  Physic,  made  himself  the  Vaugelas  and  the  Mal- 
herbe  of  his  country.  The  son  of  a  fisher  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Arkhangel,  he  had  the  colossal  frame  of  the  ancient  hocja- 
titir,  and  many  of  the  vices  of  the  people.  His  real  name 
was  Dorofeef.  He  was  sent  abroad  to  complete  his  studies, 
and  there  became  the  hero  of  a  hundred  adventures.  He  mar- 
ried the  daughter  of  a  Magdeburg  tailor,  was  kidnapped  for 
the  King  of  Prussia,  and  imprisoned.  Even  in  Russia  his 
drunkenness  and  turbulence  would  have  drawn  him  into  many 
scrapes,  but  for  the  intervention  of  his  protectors.  He  pub- 
lished a  grammar,  a  book  of  rhetoric  and  poetics,  and  labored 
to  free  the  modern  Russian  language  from  the  Slavonic  of  the 
Church.  His  "  panegyrics  "  of  Peter  and  Elisabeth,  and,  above 
all,  his  Odes,  are  the  masterpieces  of  the  time.  Sumarokof 
wrote  dramas,  comedies,  and  satires,  and  published  the  first 
Russian  review,  "The  Busy  Bee."  Kniazhnin  was  very  suc- 
cessful in  comedy,  though  his  tragedies  were  poor.  Prince 
Kantemir,  son  of  the  Hospodar  of  Moldavia,  ambassador  at 
Paris  and  London,  published  letters  and  satires.  Trediakov- 
ski,  author  of  the  tragedy  of  "  Deidamia  "  and  of  another  infe- 
rior epic  poem,  called  the  "  Telemakhid,"  imitated  from  Ecne- 
lon,  is  chiefly  known  as  a  reformer  of  the  language,  and  an 
indefatigable  translator.  He  translated  all  Rollin's  "  Ancient 
History,"  Boileau's  "Art  Poetique,"  the  libretti  of  Italian  operas, 
and  works  of  science  and  politics.  His  biography  proves  the 
small  estimation  in  which  a  poet  was  then  held.  Anna  Ivan- 
ovna  had  employed  him  to  make  rhymes  for  her  masquerades, 
and  we  have  seen  how  brutally  he  was  treated  by  Voluiuski. 

Elisabeth,  like  Anna  Ivanovna,  loved  the  theatre.  The 
Italian  company  of  LocateUi  acted  ballets  and  comic  operas. 


1741-17G2.]  ELISABETH    PETROVNA.  171 

Serigny,  director  of  a  French  theatre,  made  twenty-five  thou- 
sand rubles  a  year.  The  Empress  furnished  spectatoj-s,  wilhng 
or  reluctant,  sending  lackeys  to  beat  up  the  laggards,  and 
imposing  a  fine  of  fifty  rubles  on  all  who  would  not  come. 
The  Russian  theatre  had  already  begun  to  exist.  Sumarokof 
led  his  actors,  who  were  members  of  the  corps  of  cadets,  into 
the  apartments  of  the  Empress.  Volkof,  the  son  of  a  mer- 
chant, and  a  protege  of  the  voievod  Mussin-Pushkin,  was  at  once 
author,  actor,  manager,  decorator,  and  scene-painter,  and  hav- 
ing seen  the  German  company  at  Saint  Petersburg,  he  started 
a  company  at  laroslavl.  The  Empress,  hearing  of  it,  invited 
him  to  come  to  the  capital,  where  he  founded  the  first  public 
Russian  theatre  in  seventeen  hundred  and  fifty-six.  Three 
years  later  he  was  sent  to  Moscow  for  the  same  pui-pose. 
Sumarokof  afterwards  became  the  manager  of  it,  and  wrote 
twenty-six  pieces  for  it,  among  which  were  "  Khorev,"  "  Sineus 
and  Truvor,"  "Dmitri  the  Impostor,"  and  some  translations 
of  Shakespeare  and  of  French  pieces. 

The  characteristic  feature  of  the  reign  of  Elisabeth  is  the 
establishment  of  direct  relations  with  France,  which  had  been, 
since  the  seventeenth  century,  the  highest  representative  of 
European  civilization.  Up  to  this  time  French  civilization 
had  been  only  known  at  second  hand  in  Russia.  The  people 
were  Dutch  under  Peter  the  First,  German  under  Anna  Ivan- 
ovna.  The  Russians  had  made  themselves  the  pupils  of  those 
who  were  themselves  but  pupils  of  the  French.  Now  the 
barriers  were  thrown  down.  Learned  Frenchmen  were  mem- 
bers of  the  Academy  of  Sciences,  French  artists  of  the  Academy 
of  Fine  Arts.  Serigny's  French  theatre  was  thronged  ;  Su- 
marokof caused  Russian  translations  from  French  works  to  be 
put  on  the  stage,  and  the  Russians  learned  to  know  Corneille, 
Racine,  and  Mohere.  The  writings  of  Vauban  on  Fortifica- 
tions, and  of  Saint  Remy  on  Artillery,  were  translated.  The 
favorite,  Ivan  Shuvalof,  had  his  furniture  brought  from  France, 
his  dresses  from  Paris,  loved  everything  French,  and  caused 


172  HISTORY    OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  Vll. 

Elisabeth,  who  had  once  been  betrothed  to  Louis  the  fifteenth, 
to  share  his  tastes.  Ehsabeth  herself  dressed  most  expensively 
in  the  Erench  fashion.  When  she  died  more  than  fifteen  thou- 
sand rich  dresses  were  found  in  her  wardrobe,  none  of  which 
had  ever  been  worn  more  than  once.  Several  thousand  pairs  of 
shoes  and  slippers  and  two  great  chests  of  silk  stockings  also 
bore  witness  to  lier  extravagance.  La  Chetardie  and  L'Hopital 
made  the  manners  of  Versailles  fashionable.  The  Russians 
perceived  that  they  had  more  affinity  with  the  French  than 
with  the  Germans.  Trediakovski  and  Kirill  Razumovski 
went  to  perfect  themselves  in  Paris,  where  the  Russian  stu- 
dents were  sufficiently  numerous  to  have  a  chapel  of  their  own, 
under  the  protection  of  the  ambassador.  A  Vorontsof  entered 
the  service  of  Louis  the  fifteenth,  and  in  the  uniform  of  the 
light  cavalry  stood  on  guard  in  the  galleries  of  Versailles.  The 
ambassador  Kanteniir  was  a  friend  of  Montesquieu.  A  gen- 
eration of  French  in  ideas  and  culture  grew  up  at  Elisabeth's 
Court.  Catherine  the  Second,  Princess  Dashkof,  and  the 
Vorontsofs  wrote  French  as  easily  as  their  own  language.  In 
seventeen  hundred  and  forty-six  De  ITsle  communicated  to 
the  Academy  of  Sciences  the  wish  expressed  by  Voltaire  to 
become  a  corresponding  member.  The  following  year,  by 
means  of  D'Allion  and  Kirill  Razumovski,  Voltaire  entered 
into  relations  with  Shuvalof,  who  furnished  him  with  docu- 
ments, as  well  as  wdth  advice  and  criticism,  for  his  "  History  of 
Russia  under  Peter  the  Great." 

Li  her  internal  policy,  then,  Elisabeth  continued  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  great  Emperor.  She  developed  the  material  pros- 
perity of  the  country,  reformed  the  legislation,  and  created 
new  centres  of  population  ;  she  gave  an  energetic  impulse  to 
science  and  the  national  literature ;  she  prepared  the  way  for 
the  alliance  of  France  and  Russia,  now  emancipated  from  the 
German  yoke ;  while  in  foreign  affairs  she  put  a  stop  to  the 
threatening  advance  of  Prussia,  vanquished  and  reduced  to 
despair  the  first  general  of  the  age,  and  concluded  the  first 


174L-1762.]  ELISABETH    PETEOVNA.  173 

Franco-Russian  alliance  against  the  military  monarchy  of  the 
Hohenzollerns.  Better  appreciated  by  the  hght  of  later  dis- 
coveries, Elisabeth  will  hold  an  honorable  place  in  history, 
even  when  compared  to  Peter  the  Great  and  Catherine  the 
Second. 


174  HISTORY  OF  EUSSIA.  [Chap.  VIII. 


CHAPTER  VIIL 

PETER  THE  THIRD  AND  THE  REVOLUTION  OF 
SEVENTEEN    HUNDRED  AND  SIXTY- TVTO. 

Government  of  Peter  the  Third,  and  the  Alliance  with  Frederic 
THE  Second.  —  Revolution  of  Seventeen  Hundred  and  Sixty-two.- 
Catherine  the  Second. 


GOVERNMENT     OP     PETER      THE     THIRD,     AND    THE 
ALLIANCE  WITH  FREDERIC  THE  SECOND. 

THE  successor  of  Elisabeth  was  her  nephew,  the  grandson 
of  Peter  the  Great,  son  of  Anna  Petrovna  and  of  Karl 
Eriedrich,  Duke  of  PIolstein-Gottorp ;  at  the  time  he  M^as 
thirty-four  years  of  age.  His  accession  was  looked  forward 
to  with  feelings  of  mistrust,  because  he  affected  to  think  him- 
self a  stranger  in  Russia,  and  to  act  more  as  the  Duke  of  Hol- 
stein  than  as  heir  to  the  imperial  throne.  Without  education 
and  without  training,  his  youth  had  been  passed  in  puerile 
amusements ;  he  seemed  to  care  only  for  minute  military 
details,  occupied  himself  in  drilling  his  battalion  of  Holstein- 
ers,  —  known  by  the  name  of  "long-suffering,"  —  and  showed 
himself  the  fanatical  admirer  of  Erederic  the  Second  and  of 
the  Prussian  tactics.  His  aunt  suspected  him  of  communi- 
cating to  Erederic  the  secret  deliberations  of  her  government, 
and  thought  herself  obliged  to  exclude  him  from  conferences 
which  were  concerned  with  affairs  of  war  and  administration. 
The  first  measures  of  Peter  the  Third  caused,  however,  a 
delightful  surprise.  In  Eebruary,  seventeen  hundred  and  six- 
ty-two, he  published  a  manifesto  which  freed  the  nobility  from 
the  obligation  imposed  on  them  by  Peter  the  Great,  of  devot- 


1762.]      PETER  III.   AND  THE  EEVOLUTION  OF   1762.        175 

ing  themselves  to  the  service  of  the  State.  He  reminded  them 
that  this  law  of  his  grandfather  had  produced  most  salutary 
effects,  by  forcing  the  nobles  to  educate  themselves  and  take 
an  interest  in  the  public  welfare,  by  giving  birth  to  an  enlight- 
ened generation,  and  by  furnishing  the  State  with  distin- 
guislied  generals  and  administrators.  But  now  that  the  love 
of  the  sovereign  and  zeal  for  his  service  was  spread  abroad, 
he  thought  it  no  longer  necessary  to  maintain  the  law.  The 
Russian  nobles,  overcome  with  gratitude,  thought  of  raising  a 
statue  of  gold  to  him.  Peter  the  Third  answered  that  they 
could  put  the  gold  to  a  better  use,  and  he  hoped  by  his  reign 
to  raise  a  more  enduring  memorial  in  the  hearts  of  his  people. 
Another  reform  was  the  abolition  of  the  Secret  Court  of  Police, 
• —  "  an  abominable  tribunal,"  writes  the  English  ambassador, 
"  as  bad,  and  in  some  respects  worse  than  the  Spanish  Inqui- 
sition." Peter  the  Third  respected  the  raskolniki ;  they  had 
been  so  cruelly  persecuted  during  the  preceding  reign,  that 
their  number  had  fallen  from  forty  thousand  to  five  thousand 
in  the  government  of  Novgorod  alone  ;  and  thousands  of  these 
unhappy  creatures  had  fled  to  the  deserts,  or  emigrated  into 
the  neighboring  countries.  He  commanded  that  they  should 
be  brought  back  to  Russia,  offering  them  at  the  same  time 
lands  in  Siberia  ;  "  for,"  says  the  ukaz,  "  the  Mahometans  and 
even  idolaters  are  tolerated  in  the  empire.  But  the  raskolniki 
are  Christians."  He  took  up  his  grandfather's  project  of  the 
resumption  of  conventual  property,  allowing  the  monks  a  pen- 
sion in  its  stead.  He  even  thought  of  the  peasants,  on  whom 
the  modern  State  founded  by  Peter  the  Great  weighed  so 
heavily,  and  proclaimed  a  pardon  to  those  who,  misled  by  false 
intelligence,  thought  they  were  able  to  rise  against  their  mas- 
ters. The  greater  part  of  these  acts  were  inspired  by  his  Sec- 
retary of  State,  Volkof.  The  culprits  of  the  last  reign  —  the 
Mengdens,  Madame  Lapukhin,  old  Marshal  Miinnich  and  his 
son,  Lestocq,  the  Duke  of  Kurland,  and  all  the  Birens  — were 
recalled. 


176  HISTOHY  OF  RUSSIA.  [Chap.  VIIL 

Unhappily,  the  Emperor's  personal  conduct  almost  neutral- 
ized any  wisdom  in  his  laws.  Not  only  did  he  plunder  the 
clergy,  but  he  did  not  hide  his  contempt  for  the  national  re- 
ligion, which  he  had  been  forced  to  embrace  instead  of  Luther- 
anism.  The  people  were  scandalized  by  his  attitude  in  the 
funeral  chamber  where  the  corpse  of  his  aunt  was  exposed. 
"He  was  seen,"  says  Princess  Dashkof,  "  whispering  and  laugh- 
ing with  the  ladies-in-waiting,  turning  the  priests  into  ridicule, 
picking  quarrels  with  the  officers,  or  even  with  the  sentinels, 
about  the  way  their  cravats  were  folded,  the  length  of  their 
curls,  or  the  cut  of  their  uniforms."  The  reforms  that  he 
introduced  into  the  dress  and  drill,  so  as  to  assimilate  them  to 
those  of  Prussia,  irritated  the  army  ;  the  guards  were  jealous 
of  the  favor  shown  the  battalions  of  Holstein,  which  he  wished 
to  raise  to  eighteen  thousand  men,  and  proposed  as  models 
for  the  national  troops.  The  suppression  of  the  body-guard  of 
grenadiers,  formed  by  Elisabeth  in  seventeen  hundred  and 
forty-one,  announced  to  the  regiments  of  Preobrazhenski,  Se- 
menovski,  and  Isma'ilovski  the  lot  that  awaited  them.  The 
Emperor  had  already  observed  that  "  the  guards  were  danger- 
ous, and  held  the  palace  in  a  state  of  siege." 

The  court  was  discontented  with  the  foolish  innovations 
he  introduced  into  etiquette,  obliging  tlie  ladies  to  courtesy  in 
the  German  fashion.  He  seemed  to  have  taken  an  aversion 
to  all  the  tastes  of  his  aunt,  and  one  of  his  first  cares  was  to 
dismiss  the  Erench  company  of  actors.  The  manners  of  the 
upper  classes  had  become  sufficiently  refined  to  look  upon 
Peter's  gross  habits  with  disgust.  "  The  life  led  by  the  Em- 
peror," writes  the  Erench  ambassador,  De  Breteuil,  "  is  shame- 
ful." He  smokes  and  drinks  beer  for  hours  together,  and 
only  ceases  from  these  anuisements  at  five  or  six  in  the  morn- 
ing,   when  he  is  dead    drunk He  has  redoubled  his 

attentions  towards  Mademoiselle  Vorontsof.  One  must  allow 
that  it  is  a  strange  taste  :  she  has  no  wit ;  and  as  to  her  face, 
it  is  impossible  to  imagine  anything  uglier :  she  resembles  in 
every  way  a  servant  at  a  low  inn." 


1702.]     PETER   III.    AND   THE    REVOLUTION   OF    1762.          177 

The  foreign  policy  of  Peter  the  Third  only  widened  the 
breach  between  himself  and  his  subjects.  Frederic  the  Second, 
since  the  battle  of  KiinersdorfF,  was  brought  to  the  greatest 
straits  ;  the  slow  movements  of  Buturlin  in  the  campaign  of 
seventeen  hundred  and  sixty-one  had  indeed  procured  him  a 
little  respite,  but  if  the  war  with  Russia  was  prolonged,  he  was 
ruined.  We  may  imagine  with  what  joy  and  hope  he  hailed 
the  accession  of  Peter  the  Third.  He  addressed  his  congratu- 
lations to  the  new  Emperor  through  the  English  and^assador 
in  Russia,  and  the  friendship  between  the  great  king  and  his 
admirer  was  soon  renewed.  The  king  sent  him  the  brevet  of 
major-general  in  the  Prussian  service,  and  Peter  is  said  to  have 
boasted  that  his  surest  title  to  glory  was  in  his  subordination  to 
Frederic.  Tchernishef  received  orders  to  detach  himself  from 
the  Austrians  in  Silesia,  and  the  King  of  Prussia  sent  Goltz 
to  make  proposals  of  peace  to  the  Tsar.  He  authorized  his 
envoy  even  to  cede  Eastern  Prussia  if  it  was  exacted  by  Peter, 
merely  reservnig  to  himself  an  indemnity.  On  his  arrival 
Goltz  found  a  prince  who  swore  only  hy  Frederic  the  Sec- 
ond, wore  his  portrait  in  a  ring,  and  remembered  all  that  he 
had  suffered  for  him  in  the  rei2;n  of  Ehsabeth,  when  he  had 
been  dismissed  from  the  "  Conference."  There  was  no  longer 
any  question  of  annexing  Eastern  Prussia,  as  the  late  Tsaritsa 
had  so  ardently  wished  ;  Peter  the  Third  restored  to  his  "old 
friend "  all  the  Russian  conquests,  and  formed  an  offensive 
and  defensive  alliance  with  him.  The  two  princes  promised 
each  other  help  to  the  amount  of  twelve  thousand  infantry 
and  eight  thousand  horses,  and  the  Prussians,  who  had  till 
that  moment  been  fighting  the  Russians,  now  joined  them 
against  Austria.  Frederic  guaranteed  to  the  Emperor  his 
States  of  Holstein,  and  confirmed  Peter's  uncle  in  the  duchy 
of  Kurland,  undertaking  to  come  to  an  understanding  with 
him  on  the  subject  of  Poland.  Such  a  sudden  change  in 
State  policy  had  never  before  been  seen.  Breteuil  and  Mercy 
d'Argenteau,   the  French  and  Austrian   ambassadors,   found 

VOL.    II.  12 


178  HISTORY  OF  EUSSIA.  [Chap.  VIII. 

themselves  all  at  once  in  disfavor.  The  envoy  of  Frederic  the 
Second  was  not  only  a  favorite,  he  was  really  the  chief  min- 
ister of  the  Emperor  of  Russia,  pointing  out  suspicious  char- 
acters, banishing  his  enemies,  accusing  Vorontsof  and  the 
Shuvalofs  of  French  sympathies.  The  treaty  being  concluded, 
Peter  the  Third,  at  a  grand  dinner,  proposed  the  health  of 
the  King  of  Prussia,  amidst  the  thunders  of  the  guns  of  the 
fortress.  He  carried  his  extravagances,  by  which  he  testi- 
fied his  admiration  for  the  great  man,  to  such  a  point  as  to 
disquiet  Goltz  himself.  "  Let  us  drink  to  the  health  of  the 
king  our  master,"  he  cried  in  one  of  his  orgies ;  "  he  has 
done  me  the  honor  to  confide  to  me  one  of  his  regiments.  I 
hope  he  will  not  dismiss  me ;  you  may  be  assured  that  if  he 
should  order  it,  1  would  make  war  on  hell  with  all  my  em- 
pire." 

REVOLUTION  OF  SEVENTEEN  HUNDRED  AND  SIXTY- 
TWO  :  CATHERINE  THE    SECOND. 

The  Russians  would  have  hailed  with  pleasure  the  end  of  a 
tedious  war,  though  they  regretted  the  abandonment  of  the 
conquests  of  Elisabeth,  but  a  new  war  succeeded  the  old  one ; 
the  empire  was  to  be  exhausted  anew,  combating  its  allies  of 
yesterday,  and  to  fight  against  Denmark  for  the  pretensions  of 
the  house  of  Holstein.  The  hearts  of  the  people  softened 
towards  the  Empress  Catherine  on  account  of  the  harsh  treat- 
ment she  had  received,  her  intelligence  and  her  demonstra- 
tions of  piety  throwing  into  relief  the  incapacity  and 
extravagances  of  her  husband.  Peter  the  Third  wished  to 
divorce  her  and  to  marry  Elisabeth  Vorontsof ;  he  was  said  to 
meditate  disinheriting  his  son  Pavel,  or  Paul,  in  favor  of  Ivan 
the  Sixth  ;  once  he  gave  an  order,  which  was  not  executed,  to 
arrest  his  wife,  and  to  confine  her  in  a  convent. 

Sophia  of  Anhalt,  now  the  Empress  Catherine,  was  not  a 
M'oman  to  pardon  these  threats,  nor  to  wait  till  they  were  car- 
ried into  effect.     As  Breteuil  remarks,  "  All  this,  joined  to 


17 62.]     PETER   III.   AND   THE   REVOLUTION   OF    1762.         179 

daily  humiliations,  fermented  in  a  brain  like  hers,  and  wanted 
only  an  occasion  to  break  out."  She  bided  her  time  and 
acted. 

Numerous  contemporary  documents  exist  about  the  revolu- 
tion of  June,  seventeen  hundred  and  sixty-two.     It  must  be 
remembered,  however,  that  all  of  these  accounts  were  written 
by  Peter's  enemies.     The  accounts  best  known  are  those  of 
Rulhiere,  of  Princess  Dashkof  in  her  Memoirs,  of  Keith  and 
Breteuil  in  their  despatches,  and  of  Catherine  the  Second  her- 
self in  her  letter   to    Poniatovski.     The  order   given  to  the 
guards  to  leave   for   Holstein    precipitated    the  revolution  of 
seventeen  hundred  and  sixty-two,  as  a  similar  order  precipi- 
tated that  of  seventeen    hundred  and    forty-one.     Peter  the 
Third  had  no  idea  of  his  danger,  although  he  was  frequently 
warned  by  Prederic  to  be  on  his  guard  ;  he  did  not  see  that 
conspirators  were  silently  increasing  and  multiplying  in  the 
senate,  in  the  court,  and  in  the  army.     The  number  of  them 
was  great,  and  their  aims  often  different.     Some  wished  to 
proclaim  Paul  the  First,  under  the  guardianship  of  his  mother ; 
others  desired  to  crown  Catherine  herself.     The  group  which 
had  then  all  the  confidence  of  the  Empress  was  composed  of 
young    ofRcers :  Gregory  Orlof,  her  lover,  Alexis  Orlof,  and 
three  other  brothers,  Bibikof,  and  Passek,     The  Orlofs  were 
acquainted  with  all  the  details  of  the  affair,  and  concealed  it 
with  care  from  the  other  conspirators,  among  them  Princess 
Dashkof,  the  sister  of  the  Emperor's  favorite  mistress,  whom 
they  considered  wanting  in  discretion.     Put  on  her  guard  by 
the  arrest  of  Lieutenant  Passek  on  the  eighth  of  June,  Cath- 
erine resolved  to  act.     Peter  the  Third  was  then  at  Oranien- 
baum,  about  twenty  miles  from   Saint  Petersburg,  with  his 
Holsteiners,  and  Catherine  at  Peterhof,  between  Oranienbaum 
and  Saint  Petersburg.     She  abruptly  quitted  her  residence, 
accompanied  by  Gregory  and  Alexis  Orlof  and  two  servants. 
On  her  arrival   in  the  capital   the  three  regiments  of   Foot 
Guards  rose  and  took  the  oaths  to  her  at  the  hands  of  their 


ISO  HISTORY  OF  EUSSIA.  [Chap.  VIll. 

priests.  Peter's  uncle,  George  of  Holstein,  was  arrested  by  liis 
own  regiment  of  Horse  Guards.  From  Our  Lady  of  Kazan, 
Catherine  went  to  the  Winter  Palace,  whence  Admiral  Taluizin 
was  sent  to  secure  the  allegiance  of  Kronstadt,  and  whence 
proclamations  were  issued  to  the  people  and  the  army.  Then, 
at  the  head  of  nearly  twenty  thousand  men,  besides  artillery, 
she  marched  on  Oranienbaum. 

Peter  the  Third,  suddenly  aroused  from  his  tranquil  repose, 
embarked  for  Kronstadt  to  put  himself  at  the  head  of  the  gar- 
rison. "I  am  the  Emperor,"  he  cried  to  Taluizin.  "There 
is  no  longer  any  Emperor,"  replied  the  admiral,  and,  menaced 
by  the  artillery  of  the  fortress,  Peter  had  to  return  to  his  resi- 
dence. There,  in  spite  of  the  counsels  of  the  warlike  old 
Miinnich  and  the  presence  of  his  fifteen  hundred  Holsteiners, 
he  quietly  abdicated,  —  "  like  a  child  being  sent  to  sleep,"  as 
Erederic  the  Second  remarked.  He  visited  his  wife  with  his 
mistress  and  his  most  intimate  friends  :  "  after  which,"  relates 
the  Empress,  "  I  sent  the  deposed  Emperor,  under  the  com- 
mand of  Alexis  Orlof,  accompanied  by  four  ofRcers  and  a  de- 
tachment of  gentle  and  reasonable  men,  to  a  place  named 
Ropsha,  fifteen  miles  from  Peterhof,  a  secluded  spot,  but  very 
pleasant."  Here  he  died  in  four  days,  of  a  haemorrhoidal 
colic,"  his  wife  assures  us,  which  was  complicated  by  "  flying 
to  the  brain."  This  was  the  version  officially  adopted.  The 
English  ambassador  relates  that  he  received  the  following  note 
from  the  Russian  Cabinet  :  "  The  imperial  minister  of  Russia 
thinks  it  his  duty  to  inform  the  foreign  ministers  that  the 
late  Emperor  having  been  taken  ill  with  a  violent  colic,  to 
which  he  was  subject,  died  yesterday." 

Capefique,  in  his  history  of  Catherine  the  Second,  which 
always  takes  the  best  view  of  her  character,  thus  describes  the 
death  of  Peter:  "  Six  days  after  his  abdication  the  three  Orlofs 
came  to  visit  him  in  his  prison.  What  was  the  design  of  this 
dark  mission  ?  Was  a  new  abdication  or  was  exile  the  question 
at  issue?    Was  the  prison  the  portal  of  the  tomb?    The  only 


176.2.]     PETER  III.   AND   THE   REVOLUTION   OF   1762.  ISl 

explanation  which  has  any  certainty  is,  that  a  hand-to-hand 
struggle  ensued  in  the  cell.  Peter  was  of  great  muscular  ac- 
tivity. Alexis  Orlof  Avas  in  no  respect  his  inferior ;  the  Tsar 
was  overcome  by  the  grasp  of  his  adversary.  The  fingers  of 
Orlof's  colossal  hand  left  a  black  and  blue  mark  around  his 
neck ;  the  Tsar  was  choked  to  death  in  a  brutal  and  savage  con- 
flict. It  is  said  that  the  Empress  had  no  desire  for  this  mel- 
ancholy catastrophe ;  the  Orlofs  of  their  own  free  will  assassi- 
nated the  prince,  who  some  day  might  be  able  to  avenge  himself 
for  so  many  insults.  Oftentimes  when  such  revolutions  occur 
we  find  accidents,  catastrophes  which  at  first  were  not  premedi- 
tated. The  bloody  demon  of  political  exigency  arises  to  com- 
mand these  State  crimes  which  save  empires ;  and  it  is 
perhaps  with  a  sad  and  bitter  thought  that  Voltaire  celebrates 
Catherine  as  the  Semiramis  of  the  North." 

The  unhappy  son  of  Anna  Leopoldovna  and  of  Anton,  the 
great-grandson  of  the  Tsar  Ivan  the  Fifth,  the  Emperor,  im- 
prisoned since  his  childhood  by  Elisabeth  and  confined  at 
Schliisselburg,  had  been  brought  by  Peter  the  Third  to  Saint 
Petersburg.  He  Avas  now  twenty-one  years  old,  and  had  lost 
his  reason.  Catherine  the  Second  imprisoned  him  anew  at 
Schliisselburg.  He  was  no  dangerous  character,  but  merely 
a  name.  A  memorandum  of  the  Empress  on  the  subject  still 
exists.  "  It  is  my  opinion  that  he  should  not  be  allowed  to 
escape,  so  as  to  place  him  beyond  the  power  of  doing  harm. 
It  would  be  best  to  tonsure  him,  and  to  transfer  him  to  some 
monastery,  neither  too  near  nor  too  far  off;  it  will  suffice  if  it 
does  not  become  a  shrine." 

Revolutions  are  almost  invariably  followed  by  revolts.  The 
frequency  of  these  military  coups-de-main  encouraged  auda- 
cious spirits ;  and  only  two  years  after  Catherine's  usurpation, 
Mirovitch,  lieutenant  of  the  guards,  conceived  the  project  of 
delivering  Ivan  the  Sixth.  His  warders,  seeing  no  other 
means  of  preventing  his  escape,  put  him  to  death  at  the 
moment  that  Mirovitch  entered  his  chamber,  and  the  conspi- 


1S2  HISTORY  OF  RUSSIA.  [Chap.  VIIL 

rator  found  nothing  but  his  corpse.  He  was  himself  arrested 
and  condemned  to  death.  The  day  of  the  execution,  the  peo- 
ple, who  during  the  twenty  years'  reign  of  Elisabeth  had  seen 
no  one  beheaded,  uttered  such  a  cry,  and  were  seized  with 
such  emotion,  that  when  the  executioner  held  up  the  head  of 
Mirovitch  the  bridge  over  the  Neva  almost  gave  way  under 
the  pressure  of  the  crowd,  and  the  balustrades  broke.  Cath- 
erine had  now  no  rival  for  the  throne  of  Russia  except  her 
own  son. 

"  I  know,"  writes  Voltaire  some  years  later,  speaking  of 
Catherine,  —  "I  know  that  she  is  reproached  with  some  tri- 
fles about  her  husband,  but  these  are  family  affairs  with  which 
I  do  not  meddle.  And,  after  all,  it  is  often  as  well  to  have  a 
fault  to  repair  ;  it  obliges  people  to  make  greater  efforts  to 
wrest  esteem  and  admiration  from  the  public."  We  shall  see 
what  efforts  were  used  by  Catherine  the  Second  to  force  the 
Russians  to  forget  the  means  by  which  she  had  gained  the 
throne. 


VOLTAIRE. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

CATHERINE   II.  :    EARLY  YEARS. 

1762-1780. 

End  of  the  Seven  Years'  War:  Intervention  in  Poland  —  First 
Turkish  War  :  First  Partition  of  Poland  (1772)  :  Swedish 
Revolution  of  Seventeen  Hundred  and  Seventy-two.  —  Plague 
AT  Moscow.  —  Pugatchef. 


END  OF  THE  SEVEN  YEARS'  WAR:  INTERVENTION 

IN  POLAND. 

IN  the  first  moments  that  followed  her  triumph,  Catherine 
the  Second  published  a  manifesto  in  which  Frederic 
was  treated  as  "  perturber  of  the  public  peace,"  and  "  per- 
fidious enemy  of  Russia."  She  soon,  however,  changed  her 
mind.  This  princess,  who  had  punished  Peter  the  Third  for 
his  alliance  with  Prussia  and  his  designs  upon  the  Church 
property,  was  herself  destined  to  realize,  both  in  her  foreign 
and  domestic  policy,  the  plans  of  her  husband.  Tchernishef 
had  received  the  order  to  detach  himself  from  the  Prussians, 
as  he  had  formerly  received  the  order  to  detach  himself  from 
the  Austrians.  Frederic  managed  to  retard  the  departure  of 
the  general  for  three  days,  and  Tchernishef  consented  to 
occupy  with  grounded  arms  a  position  which  covered  the 
Prussian  army.  Frederic  profited  by  this  to  defeat  Daun  at 
Burkersdorff  and  LeutmannsdorfF.  The  final  withdrawal  of 
Russia  from  the  Seven  Years'  War  hastened  the  conclusion 
of  peace.  During  all  the  early  part  of  her  reign,  Catherine's 
policy  consisted  in  what  is  known  as  the  "  system  of  the 
North  " ;  that  is,  a  close  alliance  with  Prussia,  England,  and 


1S4  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  IX. 

Denmark,  against  the  two  great  powers  of  the  South,  the 
house  of  Bourbon  and  the  house  of  Austria.  The  diplomatic 
struggle  with  France  especially  was  very  lively  in  the  second- 
ary courts ;  that  is  to  say,  at  Warsaw,  at  Stockholm,  and  at 
Constantinople. 

The  duchy  of  Kurknd,  legally  a  dependency  of  the  Polish 
crown,  but  in  reality  annexed  to  the  Russian  Empire,  found 
itself  at  that  time  without  a  sovereign.  Anna  Leopoldovna 
had  exiled  the  Duke  Biren ;  Peter  the  Third  had  intended 
that  George  of  Holstein  should  have  the  crown ;  Augustus 
the  Third  had  coveted  it  for  his  son  Charles  of  Saxony ; 
Catherine  put  an  end  to  the  competition  by  re-establishing 
Biren.    It  was  a  union  in  disguise  of  Kurland  and  the  empire. 

A  more  important  event  soon  absorbed  all  her  attention : 
this  was  the  approaching  death  of  the  King  of  Poland,  and 
the  consequent  opening  of  the  whole  question  of  succession. 
Two  parties  were  then  disputing  the  power  at  Warsaw  :  the 
court  party,  with  the  minister  Briihl  and  his  son-in-law 
Mnishek,  and  the  party  supported  by  Russia,  headed  by  the 
Tchartoruiski.  The  former  wished  to  secure  the  succession  for 
the  Prince  of  Saxony,  which  was  also  the  policy  of  Prance 
and  Austria ;  the  latter  intended  to  elect  a  piast,  that  is,  a 
native  noble  of  their  own  party,  and  their  choice  had  fallen 
on  Stanislas  Poniatovski,  a  nephew  of  the  Tchartoruiski.  Thus 
Prance,  which  in  seventeen  hundred  and  thirty-three  had 
made  war  for  a  piast  against  the  Saxon  candidate,  now  sup- 
ported the  Saxon  candidate  against  Poniatovski.  Circum- 
stances had  changed,  and  the  kingdom  of  Poland,  becoming 
every  day  more  feeble,  could  be  sustained  at  all  only  by  the 
forces  of  a  German  state.  Saxony.  But  Frederic  the  Second 
feared  an  increase  of  power  for  Saxony  quite  as  much  as  for 
Poland ;  Saxony  was  the  old  rival  of  Prussia  in  the  empire,  as 
Poland  had  been  in  the  country  of  the  Vistula.  Russia,  on 
its  side,  which,  by  fighting  Stanislas  Leshtchinski,  had  fought 
the  father-in-law  of  Louis  the  Fifteenth,  now  fought  for  the 


176;2-1780.]     CATHEEINE  11. :  EARLY  YEARS.        1S5 

Saxon,  the  client  of  France  and  Austria.  riirthcr,  it  had 
no  intention  that  a  Pohsh  noble  should  become  too  powerful, 
and  meant  to  get  rid  of  the  Tchartoruiski.  The  candida- 
ture of  Stanislas  Poniatovski,  a  man  without  any  personal 
power,  therefore  satisfied  the  desires  of  Frederic  the  Second, 
the  interests  of  the  Russian  Empire,  and  the  sentiments  of 
Catherine,  who  was  glad  to  be  able  to  crown  one  of  her  early 
lovers.  When  Augustus  the  Third  really  died,  the  country 
was  violently  agitated  by  the  diets  of  convocation  and  election. 
Power  was  fiercely  disputed  by  the  two  parties.  The  Tcharto- 
ruiski called  in  the  Russian  arms  to  put  down  their  enemies, 
and  under  the  protection  of  foreign  bayonets  Poniatovski  in- 
augurated his  fatal  reign,  in  which  Poland  was  thrice  dismem- 
bered, and  erased  from  the  list  of  the  nations. 

Three  principal  causes  led  to  the  ruin  of  the  ancient  royal 
republic.  The  first  was  the  national  movement  of  Russia, 
which  tended  to  complete  itself  on  the  Western  side,  and,  to 
use  the  expression  of  its  historians,  to  "  recover  "  the  provinces 
which  had  formed  part  of  the  territory  of  Saint  Vladimir; 
that  is,  White  Russia,  Black  Russia,  and  Little  Russia.  The 
national  question  was  complicated  by  the  same  religious  ques- 
tion which  had  led,  under  Alexis  Mikhailovitch,  to  a  first 
dismemberment  of  the  Polish  State.  The  complaints  of  the 
agitations  of  the  Uniates  were  on  the  increase  in  Lithuania, 
and  Russia  had  often  tried  to  interfere  diplomatically.  Li 
seventeen  hundred  and  eighteen  and  seventeen  hundred  and 
twenty  Peter  the  Great  wrote  to  Augustus  the  Second  to 
inform  him  of  the  ill-treatment  suffered  by  his  brethren  of 
the  Greek  Church.  Augustus  published  an  edict  which 
insured  the  free  exercise  of  the  orthodox  religion,  but  which 
remained  unexecuted,  as  the  king  was  never  sufficiently  strong 
to  restrain  the  zeal  of  the  clergy  and  the  Jesuits,  to  repress 
the  abuses  of  power  on  the  part  of  his  officers,  and  to  protect 
the  peasants  belonging  to  the  Greek  Church  against  their 
lords.     Li  seventeen  hundred  and  twenty-three  Peter  wrote  to 


186  HISTORY  OF  RUSSIA.  [Chap.  IX. 

the  Pope  to  entreat  his  interference,  threatening  reprisals 
against  the  Roman  Chnrch  in  his  dominions.  The  Pope  de- 
cHned  the  proposals  of  Peter,  and  the  annoyances  continued. 

The  second  cause  of  the  ruin  of  Poland  was  the  insatiable 
greed  of  Prussia.  Poland  possessed  Western  Prussia,  that  is, 
the  lower  Vistula  between  Thorn  and  Dantzig,  separating 
Eastern  Prussia  from  the  rest  of  the  Brandenburg  monarchy. 
It  thus  spoilt  the  construction  of  the  latter  State  by  dividing 
it  into  two  parts.  Poland  also  occupied  the  side  of  the  country 
where  German  colonization  had  greatly  developed,  especially 
in  the  towns.  Moreover,  the  government  of  Warsaw  was  so 
foolish  as  to  annoy  the  Protestant  dissenters  in  the  same  way 
as  it  did  those  of  the  Greek  Church. 

In  the  third  place,  Poland  could  not  escape  the  spirit  of 
reform  which  was  the  spirit  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Pon- 
iatovski  and  the  more  enlightened  Poles  were  well  aware  of 
the  contrast  between  the  national  anarchy  and  the  order  that 
existed  in  the  neighboring  States.  W  hile  Prussia,  Russia,  and 
Austria  tried  to  constitute  themselves  into  modern  States,  to 
build  up  the  central  powers  on  the  ruins  of  the  forces  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  to  realize  the  reforms  proclaimed  by  Prench 
philosophers  and  political  economists,  Poland  had,  up  to  that 
time,  followed  the  opposite  plan,  despoiling  the  kingly  power 
at  each  accession,  weakening  the  national  strength,  persisting 
in  the  traditions  of  feudalism.  In  the  midst  of  European 
monarchies  which  attained,  on  its  very  frontiers,  the  maximum 
of  their  power,  Poland  remained  a  state  of  the  eleventh  cen- 
tnry.  It  had  allowed  them  to  get  such  a  start,  that  even  the 
effort  for  reform  hastened  its  dissolution. 

Erom  a  social  point  of  view  it  was  a  nation  of  agricultural 
serfs,  under  the  power  of  a  numerous  class  of  small  nobility, 
themselves  subject  to  a  few  great  families,  against  which  the 
king  was  absolutely  powerless.  There  was  no  middle  class  at 
all,  unless  we  give  that  name  to  some  thousands  of  Catholic 
ritizens,  and  to  a  million  of  Jews,  wdio  had  no  interest  in 


1762-1780.]        CATHERINE   II.:    EARLY   YEARS.  187 

maintaining  a  state  of  things  which  condemned  them  to 
eternal  opprobrium.  Economically,  it  had  a  primitive  system 
of  agriculture  worked  by  a  serf  population,  little  commerce, 
no  retail  trade,  no  public  finances.  From  a  political  point  of 
view  the  country  was  legally  composed  of  nobles  only.  The 
rivalry  of  the  great  families,  the  anarchy  of  the  diets,  the 
weakness  of  the  king,  the  pacta  conventa,  the  liberum  veto, 
the  confederations  or  diets  under  the  shield,  the  inveterate 
habit  of  invoking  the  intervention  of  foreign  powers,  or  of 
selling  them  their  votes,  had  extinguished  in  Poland  the  very 
idea  of  law  and  a  state.  From  a  military  point  of  view  the 
Polish  soldiers  were  merely  the  lawless  soldiers  of  the  Middle 
Ages  ;  the  only  cavalry  was  that  of  the  nobility ;  there  was  no 
infantry,  little  artillery,  and  scarcely  any  fortresses  on  the 
frontiers,  which  were  everywhere  exposed.  Maurice  de  Saxe 
affirms,  in  his  "  Reveries,"  that  it  needed  only  forty-eight 
thousand  men  to  conquer  Poland.  What  could  this  State  do, 
divided  against  itself,  long  ago  corrupted  by  the  gold  of  its 
enemies,  enclosed  by  three  powerful  monarchies,  which  oc- 
cupied its  territory  with  never  a  thought  that  they  were 
violating  its  frontiers,  and  whose  ambassadors  had  more  power 
in  its  diets  than  the  king? 

Catherine  and  Frederic  had  come  to  an  understanding  on 
two  essential  points  :  to  vindicate  the  rights  of  the  dissenters, 
and  to  prevent  all  reform  of  the  anarchic  constitution,  which 
was  giving  Poland  into  their  hands.  While  affecting  to  es- 
pouse the  cause  of  tolerance,  they  made  Europe  forget  that  it 
was  to  be  gained  at  the  price  of  the  independence  and  integ- 
rity of  the  country.  The  noisy  fanaticism  of  the  Poles  helped 
them  to  conceal  their  object. 

In  seventeen  hundred  and  sixty-five  Konisski,  the  orthodox 
bishop  of  White  Russia,  presented  a  petition  to  the  King  of 
Poland,  recalling  all  the  vexations  to  which  the  Greek  Church 
in  the  kingdom  was  subject.  Two  hundred  churches  had 
been  taken  away  from  them  and  given  to  the  Uniates ;  they 


188  HISTOEY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  IX. 

were  forbidden  to  rebuild  those  whicb  had  fallen  into  ruin,  or 
to  construct  new  ones ;  their  priests  were  ill-treated,  some- 
times put  to  death.  "  The  Missionary  Fathers,"  says  the 
petition,  "  are  specially  distinguished  for  their  zeal :  seconded 
by  the  secular  authority  when  they  are  engaged  on  a  mission, 
they  assemble  the  Greco-Russian  people  of  all  the  neighboring 
villages,  as  if  they  were  a  flock  of  sheep,  keep  them  for  six 
weeks  together,  force  them  to  confess  to  them,  and,  to  frighten 
those  that  resist,  raise  impaling  poles,  display  rods,  thorny 
branches,  erect  scaffolds,  separate  children  from  their  parents, 
women  from  their  husbands,  and  seek  to  astound  them  by 
imaginary  miracles.  In  cases  of  stout  resistance  men  are 
beaten  with  rods  or  with  thorny  branches,  their  hands  are 
burned,  and  they  are  kept  in  prison  for  months  together." 

Russia  supported  the  complaints  of  the  dissenters  before 
the  Polish  Diet,  and  Stanislas  promised  to  sustain  them.  It 
Avas  necessary  to  secure  to  the  people  the  free  exercise  of  their 
religion,  and  to  the  orthodox  nobles  the  political  rights  of 
which  they  had  been  deprived  by  former  legislatures.  The 
Diet  of  seventeen  hundred  and  sixty-six  made  a  frantic  oppo- 
sition to  this  proposal ;  the  deputy  Gurovski,  who  attempted 
to  speak  in  favor  of  the  dissenters,  narrowly  escaped  being 
put  to  death. 

Repnin,  Catherine's  ambassador,  got  the  dissenters  to  promise 
that  they  would  resort  to  the  legal  means  of  confederations. 
The  orthodox  assembled  at  Shitsk,  the  Protestants  under  the 
patronage  of  the  Russian  ambassador  at  Thorn  ;  there  was 
also  at  Radom  a  confederation  of  Catholics,  who  were  enemies 
of  the  Tchartoruiski,  and  of  those  who  feared  a  reform  of  the 
constitution,  and  the  abolition  of  the  liberum  veto.  Russia, 
which  with  Prussia  had  guaranteed  the  maintenance  of  this 
absurd  constitution,  likewise  took  them  under  its  protection. 
Eighty  thousand  Muscovites  were  ready,  at  a  sign  from 
Repnin,  to  enter  Poland.  Under  these  auspices  opened  the 
Diet  of  seventeen  hundred  and  sixty-seven :  the  Poles  did  not 


1762-1780.]        CATHERINE   II.:    EARLY  YEARS.  189 

appear  to  feel  the  insult  to  their  independence,  and  only 
exerted  themselves  to  support  the  system  of  intolerance. 
Soltuik,  bishop  of  Krakof,  Zahitski,  bishop  of  Kief,  and  two 
other  nuncios  showed  themselves  most  warm  in  their  oppo- 
sition to  the  project.  Repnin  caused  them  to  be  violently  re- 
moved and  taken  to  Russia,  and  the  Poles  had  done  so  much 
themselves  that  Europe  applauded  this  violation  of  the  law 
of  nations,  as  it  seemed  to  secure  liberty  of  conscience.  The 
Diet  yielded,  and  consented  that  the  dissident  nobles  should 
have  political  rights  equal  to  those  of  the  Catholics  ;  but  Ro- 
manism remained  the  religion  of  the  State,  and  that  which  the 
king  must  always  profess.  In  seventeen  hundred  and  sixty- 
eight  a  treaty  was  made  between  Poland  and  Russia,  in  virtue 
of  which  the  constitution  could  never  be  modified  without  the 
consent  of  the  latter  power.  This  was  to  legalize  foreign 
intervention,  and  to  condemn  Poland  to  perish  by  reason  of 
its  abuses.  The  Russian  troops  evacuated  Warsaw,  and  the 
Confederates  sent  deputies  to  thank  the  Empress. 

In  spite  of  this,  the  Confederation  of  Radom,  the  most  con- 
siderable of  the  three,  which  had  taken  up  arms  to  hinder  the 
reform  of  the  constitution,  and  in  no  wise  to  support  reforms 
in  favor  of  the  dissenters,  was  much  discontented  with  the  re- 
sult. When  it  was  dissolved,  there  sprang  from  its  remains 
the  Confederation  of  Bar,  in  Podolia,  wOiich  was  more  numer- 
ous still,  and  had  adopted  as  its  programme  not  onlv  the 
maintenance  of  the  liberum  veto,  but  also  that  of  the  exclusive 
privileges  of  the  Catholics.  In  Gallicia  and  Lublin  two  other 
confederations  were  formed  with  the  same  objects  in  view. 
The  insurgents  took  for  their  motto,  "  Religion  and  liberty  "  ; 
but  the  word  "  liberty  "  was  heard  with  indifference  by  the 
mass  of  the  people,  who  saw  in  the  "  liberty  "  of  the  Poles 
only  that  of  the  nobles.  The  Confederates  of  Bar  sent  depu- 
ties to  the  courts  of  Dresden,  Vienna,  and  Versailles,  to  inter- 
est them  in  their  cause.  In  the  West  opinion  might  well  be 
perplexed.    On  which  side,  men  asked,  was  the  nation  ranged  ? 


190  HISTORY   OF  EUSSIA.  [Chap.  IX. 

Whitlier  did  the  forces  of  the  future  tend  ?  Were  right  and 
justice  at  Warsaw  with  the  king  and  the  senate,  and  all  the 
men  who  had  voted  for  the  enfranchisement  of  the  dissent- 
ers, and  who  meditated  in  secret  the  reform  of  the  constitution 
and  the  revival  of  Poland,  or  were  thej  at  Bar,  where  tur- 
bulent nobles,  guided  by  fanatical  priests,  revolted  in  the  name 
of  the  liberum  veto  and  religious  intolerance  ?  Voltaire  and 
the  greater  part  of  the  French  philosophers  declared  in  favor  of 
King  Stanislas ;  but  the  Duke  de  Choiseul,  minister  of  Louis 
the  Fifteenth,  supported  the  Confederates.  It  did  not  strike 
him  that  by  weakening  the  authority  of  the  Polish  king  he  was 
weakening  Poland  itself.  The  Polish  government,  in  pres- 
ence of  the  insurrection,  found  itself  forced  to  commit  a  fresh 
blunder.  The  royal  army  did  not  amount  to  nine  thousand 
effective  men,  and,  according  to  the  treaty  of  alliance  with 
Russia,  they  appealed  to  Catherine  for  troops.  The  Musco- 
vite columns  wrested  Bar,  Berditchef,  and  Krakof  from  the 
Confederates.  The  orthodox  monks  replied  by  their  sermons 
to  those  of  the  Catholic  priests.  Honta'i  and  Zheliezniak 
called  to  arms  the  Cossacks  of  the  Ukraina,  the  Zaporoshtsui, 
and  the  haidamaki,  or  brigands,  who  in  a  few  days  amounted 
to  twenty  thousand  men,  and  went  plundering  from  estate  to 
estate.  Prince  Kaspar  Liubomirski,  to  his  own  harm,  out  of 
hatred  to  the  Confederates,  gave  fresh  inducements  to  the 
peasants.  A  savage  war,  at  once  national,  religious,  and  so- 
cial, desolated  the  provinces  of  the  Dnieper ;  the  land-owners 
saw  the  return  of  the  bloody  days  of  Khmelnitski.  No  Cath- 
olic priest,  no  Jew,  no  noble,  was  safe.  One  of  each  of  these 
classes  was  seen,  hanging  upon  a  tree  in  company  with  a  dog. 
The  farther  they  spread  the  more  their  strength  increased,  and 
the  more  brutal  they  became.  The  massacre  of  Uman,  a  town 
of  Count  Pototski's,  horrified  the  Ukraina.  All  the  residences 
within  forty  miles  Avere  burned  to  the  ground,  and  at  the  least 
calculation  ten  thousand  Jews  and  Catholics  were  put  to 
death. 


1763-17S0.]        CATHEEINE   II.:   EARLY  YEARS.  191 

The  Confederates,  repulsed  by  the  Russian  columns,  ob- 
tained some  support  from  the  Court  of  Vienna.  Tliey  had 
established  the  council  of  the  Confederation  at  Teshen,  their 
headquarters  at  Eperies  in  Hungary,  and  still  held  three 
places  in  Poland.  Choiseul  sent  them  money,  and  sent  also 
the  Chevalier  de  Taules,  Dumouriez,  and  the  Baron  de  Vio- 
mesnil,  to  organize  them.  In  the  Memoirs  of  Dumouriez  we 
find  that  the  forces  of  the  Confederation,  scattered  through  the 
whole  extent  of  Poland,  did  not  exceed  sixteen  or  seventeen 
thousand  horsemen,  without  infantry,  and  divided  into  five  or 
six  bands,  each  with  its  independent  chief.  Zaremba,  in  Great 
Poland,  the  Cossack  Sava,  Miatchinski,  Valevski,  and  many 
others,  usually  acted  witliout  combination.  Pulavski  was  the 
open  enemy  of  Pototski ;  Dumouriez,  with  his  undisciplined 
troops,  was  beaten  at  Landskron  in  seventeen  hundred  and 
seventy-one ;  but  Viomesnil,  Dussaillans,  and  Choisy,  three 
French  officers,  surprised  the  Castle  of  Krakof  in  seventeen 
hundred  and  seventy-two ;  it  was  shortly  afterwards  recaptured 
by  Suvorof.  On  the  third  of  November,  seventeen  hundred 
and  seventy-one,  an  attempt  was  made  by  some  of  the  Con- 
federates to  secure  the  person  of  the  king.  As  he  was  about 
to  leave  the  house  of  his  uncle,  the  Chancellor  of  Lithuania,  at 
ten  o'clock  at  night,  he  was  suddenly  surrounded  by  twelve  or 
fifteen  men.  His  escort  was  overpowered.  A  bullet  grazed 
his  skin.  He  was  dragged  out  of  the  carriage  by  his  feet.  His 
orders  and  decorations  were  torn  from  him,  and  he  was  se- 
verely wounded  in  the  head  by  a  sabre-cut.  Two  horsemen 
then  hurried  away  with  him  before  the  spectators  could  make 
any  plan  of  rescue.  In  a  few  moments  he  was  set  upon  a 
horse  which,  fortunately,  stumbled  and  broke  a  leg.  Those  who 
were  intrusted  with  guarding  him  missed  their  way  in  a  wood, 
and,  thinking  that  they  heard  the  voices  of  Russians,  they  for- 
sook him  and  fled.  About  five  o'clock  in  the  morning  the  king 
returned  to  Warsaw,  wounded  and  bleeding.  This  deed  of 
the  Confederates  place!  them  in  a  very  bad  light,  excited  the 


192  HISTORY   OF  KUSSIA.  [Chap.  IX. 

ostentatious  and  insincere  indignation  of  the  European  courts, 
and  increased  Voltaire's  dislike  of  them. 

FIRST  TURKISH  WAR:  FIRST  PARTITION  OF  POLAND: 
SWEDISH  REVOLUTION  OF  SEVENTEEN  HUNDRED 
AND   SEVENTY-TWO. 

Clioiseul  imagined  that  the  best  way  of  aiding  the  Confeder- 
ates was  to  induce  the  Turks  to  declare  war  against  Russia. 
Vergennes,  the  French  ambassador  at  Constantinople,  set  to 
work  energetically  to  bring  it  to  pass  ;  but  unhappily  France 
greatly  exaggerated  the  power  of  Turkey,  and  was  ignorant  how 
far  its  strength  had  diminished  since  its  last  war  with  Austria. 
The  mistake  made  by  Choiseul  when  he  linked  the  fote  of  his 
ally  on  the  Vistula  with  the  success  of  the  Ottoman  arms  only 
rendered  the  partition  of  Poland  inevitable.  On  the  news  of 
the  violation  of  the  frontier  at  Balta,  not  by  the  Russian  troops 
but  by  the  haidamaki,  or  brigands,  who  were  pursued  by  the 
former,  the  Sublime  Porte  declared  war  on  Russia.  The 
Earon  de  Tott  had  been  sent  by  Vergennes  to  Kruim-Girai, 
Khan  of  the  Crimea,  to  persuade  him  to  second  the  Turks. 
In  the  winter  of  seventeen  hundred  and  sixty-eight  the  Tatars 
devastated  Novaia  Serbia,  one  of  the  new  centres  which  had 
been  founded  by  Elisabeth.  Catherine,  whose  forces  Avere 
occupied  in  Poland,  had  only  a  feeble  army  to  oppose  to  the 
Turco-Tatar  invasion.  "  The  Romans,"  she  writes  to  her  gen- 
erals, "  did  not  concern  themselves  with  the  number  of  their 
enemies  ;  they  only  asked,  '  Where  are  they  ?  '  "  Alexander 
Galitsuin,  with  thirty  thousand  men,  Avas  therefore  ordered  to 
check  the  Grand  Vizier  at  the  head  of  one  hundred  thousand, 
who  was  on  the  point  of  entering  Podolia  to  join  the  Polish 
Confederates ;  Rumiantsof  was  to  occupy  the  Ukraina  and 
watch  the  Crimean  Tatars  and  the  Kalmuicki.  Galitsuin  took 
the  initiative,  defeated  the  Grand  Vizier  on  the  Dnieper,  near 
Kliotin,  Avhich  capitulated  in  September,  seventeen  hundred 
and  sixty-nine,  and  took  up  a  position  in  Valakhia  and  Mol- 


1762-1780.]        CATHERINE   II.:   EARLY   YEARS.  193 

davia,  to  the  great  joy  of  the  orthodox  popidations  of  the  Dan- 
ube. The  following  year  his  successor,  Rumiantsof,  defeated 
the  Khan  of  the  Tatars,  although  the  latter  had  one  hundred 
thousand  men,  and  was  intrenched  on  the  banks  of  the  Larga. 
He  then  gained  over  the  Gi'and  Vizier  in  person  the  victory  of 
Kabul  in  seventeen  hundred  and  seventy,  where  seventeen 
thousand  Russians  defeated  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
Mussulmans.  In  seventeen  hundred  and  seventy-one  Prince 
Dolgoruki  forced  the  lines  of  Perekop,  ravaged  the  Crimea, 
took  KafFa,  Kertch,  and  lenikale,  and  put  an  end  forever  to 
the  Turkish  rule  in  the  peninsula.  During  this  time  the  army 
of  Valakhia  captured  the  fortresses  on  the  Danube,  success- 
fully completed  the  conquest  of  Bessarabia  by  taking  Bender, 
and  penetrated  into  Bulgaria. 

Catherine  the  Second  prepared  a  yet  more  terrible  surprise 
for  the  Turkish  Empire,  disturbed  as  it  was  by  the  revolt  of  the 
Pasha  of  Egypt.  A  Russian  fleet  left  the  Baltic  under  the 
orders  of  Alexis  Orlof,  and,  after  having  put  in  at  the  English 
ports  and  made  the  tour  of  Europe,  suddenly  appeared  on  the 
coast  of  Greece.  The  Christian  populations  of  the  Western 
Morea  and  the  Mainotes,  the  inhabitants  of  the  ancient  Lace- 
da^mon,  revolted  ;  Voltaire  was  already  singing  the  regenera- 
tion of  Athens  and  the  resurrection  of  Sparta ;  but  Orlof 
abandoned  the  Greeks  after  he  had  compromised  them,  and 
hastened  away  in  search  of  the  Turkish  fleet.  With  the  help 
of  his  lieutenants,  Spiridof  and  Greig,  he  defeated  it  at  the 
harbor  of  Chios,  and  totally  annihilated  it  in  the  port  of 
Tchesme,  aided  by  fire-ships  started  by  the  English  lieuten- 
ant, Dugdale.  At  this  news  the  terror  of  Constantinople  ex- 
ceeded all  bounds  ;  they  pictured  the  Russians  arriving  in  the 
Bosphorus.  Admiral  Elphinstone,  to  whom  nearly  the  whole 
credit  of  this  great  victory  was  due,  advised  Orlof  to  sail  imme- 
diately for  Constantinople.  But  Orlof  wasted  his  time  in  the 
conquest  of  the  islands,  while  Baron  de  Tott  rallied  the  cour- 
age of  the  Sultan  and  the  Turkish  people,  drilled  the  Ottoman 

VOL.  ir.  13 


194  HISTORY  OF  EUSSIA.  [Chap.  IX. 

soldiers,  cast  cannon,  and  put  the  Dardanelles  in  a  state  of  de- 
fence. When  the  Russians  at  last,  in  seventeen  hundred  and 
seventy,  presented  themselves  at  the  entrance  of  the  Straits, 
they  were  too  late.  Elphinstone,  in  disgust,  resigned  his  posi- 
tion, and,  being  received  with  great  coolness  at  Saint  Peters- 
burg, he  returned  to  England  unrewarded.  Orlof,  on  the  other 
hand,  whose  follyand  stupidity  had  prevented  any  use  being 
made  of  the  victory,  was  received  as  a  conquering  hero. 

Russia,  however,  had  none  the  less  conquered  Azof,  the 
Crimea,  the  shore  of  the  Black  Sea  between  the  Dnieper  and 
the  Dniester,  Bessarabia,  Valakhia,  Moldavia,  a  part  of  Bulga- 
ria, and  of  the  islands  of  the  Archipelago,  and  Avould  willingly 
have  kept  its  conquests,  but  Austria  took  fright  at  Russia's 
close  neighborhood  and  at  the  disturbance  in  the  equilibrium 
of  the  East.  It  was  at  this  time  that  the  Turkish  and  Polish 
questions  became  involved  in  each  other :  Poland  was  to  serve 
as  the  ransom  of  Turkey. 

Of  the  three  Northern  States,  Prussia  was'  the  most  inter- 
ested in  the  dismemberment  of  Poland ;  it  was  a  geographical 
necessity  that  it  should  lay  hands  on  Western  Prussia,  and,  if 
possible,  on  the  cities  of  the  Vistula.  Its  king,  Frederic  the 
Second,  denounced  to  Catherine  the  projects  of  the  Tchartorui- 
ski  for  the  reform  of  the  constitution,  and  brought  to  light  the 
wrongs  of  the  dissenters  ;  in  a  word,  he  created  the  Polish 
question.  In  the  interviews  of  Neiss  in  Silesia,  and  of  Neu- 
stadt  in  Moravia,  he  had  disquieted  Joseph  the  Second  and 
Kaunitz  on  the  subject  of  Russian  ambition  in  the  East,  and 
had  suggested  the  idea  of  a  partition  of  Poland ;  and  he  also 
sent  his  brother,  Prince  Henry,  to  Saint  Petersburg,  to  gain 
over  Catherine  the  Second.  Prince  Henry  made  her  clearly 
comprehend  that  her  pretensions  in  the  East  would  cause  Aus- 
tria and  France  to  side  against  her ;  that  her  ally,  his  brother, 
the  King  of  Prussia,  weakened  by  the  Seven  Years'  War, 
would  be  unable  to  stand  a  war  against  united  Europe ;  that 
no  doubt  she  had  a  right  to  an  equivalent  for  the  expenses  of 


YOUNG    VALAKHIAN    WOMAN. 


1762-1780.]        CATHERINE   II.:    EARLY   YEARS.  195 

the  double  war,  but  that  it  could  matter  little  to  her  whether 
she  procured  this  indemnity  from  the  Vistula  or  from  the 
Danube ;  that  she  could  therefore  aggrandize  herself  at  the 
expense  of  Poland,  and  that  to  re-establish  equilibrium  in 
the  North  she  must  suffer  Prussia  and  Austria  to  aggrandize 
themselves  also. 

Catherine  the  Second,  who  had  already  on  her  hands  the 
wars  with  Poland  and  Turkey,  could  not  dream  of  fighting 
also  both  Austria  and  Prussia.  Although  she  would  have 
preferred  to  maintain  the  integrity  of  Poland,  on  condition  of 
holding  a  preponderating  influence  over  its  affairs,  she  was 
forced  to  submit  to  the  proposal  of  Frederic  the  Second.  The 
King  of  Prussia  knew  how  to  play  off  Russia  and  Austria 
against  each  other.  Even  now  he  was  acting  as  master  in 
Great  Poland,  taking  away  the  wheat  for  his  own  subjects, 
and  the  inhabitants  for  his  own  army.  Once  he  occupied 
Dantzig.  Austria  in  turn,  in  order  to  vindicate  its  ancient 
rights,  invaded  the  county  of  Zips.  The  partition  was  almost 
completed,  when  it  was  legalized  by  the  treaty  of  February 
seventeen,  seventeen  hundred  and  seventy-one,  between  Prus- 
sia and  Russia,  accepted  by  Austria  in  April,  and  signified  to 
the  King  of  Poland  on  the  eighteenth  of  September  in  that 
same  year.  Russia  obtained  White  Russia,  including  Polotsk, 
Vitepsk,  Orsha,  Mohilef,  Mstislavl,  Gomel,  Avith  one  million 
six  hundred  thousand  inhabitants  ;  Austria  had  Western  Gal- 
licia  and  Red  Russia,  with  two  million  five  hundred  thousand 
people ;  while  Prussia  got  possession  of  the  long-coveted 
Western  Prussia,  with  a  population  of  nine  hundred  thousand 
souls. 

Russia  had  still  to  treat  with  the  Porte.  After  the  rupture 
of  the  Congress  of  Fokshany,  in  seventeen  hundred  and  sev- 
enty-two, the  war  again  broke  out.  The  Russians  had  been 
fcH'ced  to  raise  the  siege  of  Silistria,  but  they  had  surrounded 
the  Grand  Vizier  in  his  camp  of  Shumla,  and  a  single  victory 
might  open  to  them  the  way  to  Constantinople.     Sultan  Ab- 


196  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  IX. 

dul  Hamid  consented  to  sign  the  Peace  of  Kutchuk-Kairnadji 
in  seventeen  hundred  and  seventy-four.  He  undertook  to 
recognize  the  independence  of  the  Tatars  of  the  Bug,  of  the 
Crimea,  and  of  Kuban ;  to  cede  Azof  on  the  Don,  Kinburn  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Dnieper,  and  all  the  strong  places  in  the 
Crimea ;  to  open  the  Straits  of  the  Bosphorus  and  the  Darda- 
nelles to  the  merchant  ships  of  Russia ;  to  treat  the  Russian 
merchants  in  the  same  way  as  the  French,  who  were  then  the 
most  favored  nation ;  to  grant  an  amnesty  to  all  the  Christian 
populations  engaged  in  the  last  insurrection ;  to  allow  the 
Russian  ambassadors  to  interfere  in  favor  of  their  subjects  in 
the  Danubian  principalities  ;  to  pay  a  war  indemnity  of  four 
million  five  hundred  thousand  rubles,  and  to  recognize  the 
imperial  title  of  the  Russian  sovereign.  Not  only  did  Russia 
acquire  important  territories  and  numerous  strategical  points, 
but  it  established  a  sort  of  protectorate  over  the  Christian  sub- 
jects of  the  Sultan,  and  prepared  the  way  for  the  annexation 
of  the  Crimea,  of  the  Kuban,  and  of  all  the  northern  shore  of 
the  Black  Sea. 

France,  indirectly  defeated  in  Poland  and  Turkey,  had 
lately  obtained  a  great  diplomatic  success  in  Sweden.  Fred- 
eric the  Second  and  Catherine  the  Second  were  under  a  tacit 
understanding  to  guarantee  in  the  latter  country  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  oligarchic  constitution,  which  w^as  practically  the 
maintenance  of  anarchy.  This  was  in  order  to  reserve  to 
themselves  a  pretext  for  interference,  and  even  to  prepare  for 
a  dismemberment,  which  would  have  given  Finland  to  Russia, 
and  Swedish  Pomerania  to  Prussia ;  the  role  of  third  parti- 
tioner,  played  by  Austria  in  the  Polish  question,  would  have 
been  here  assigned  to  Denmark.  Gustavus  the  Third,  who 
had  grown  up  amidst  the  clamors  and  intrigues  of  the  Diet, 
was  determined  to  re-establish  the  royal  power,  as  being  the 
only  hope  for  the  independence  of  the  country.  In  seventeen 
hundred  and  seventy-one,  while  he  was  still  prince  royal,  he 
went  to  France,  visited  the  philosophers,  frequented  the  fash- 


1702- 1780.]        CATHEKINE   11. :    EAELY   YEARS.  197 

ionable  salons,  amongst  others  that  of  Madame  GeofFrin,  and 
received  encouragement  and  promises  of  help  from  the  French 
government.  The  spectacle  of  the  anticipated  partition  of  Po- 
land strengthened  him  in  his  patriotic  resolutions,  and  a  fevor- 
able  opportunity  seemed  offered  by  the  embarrassing  situation 
of  both  Russia- and  Prussia.  Recalled  to  Sweden  by  the  death 
of  his  father,  he  prepared  his  coup-d'etat  with  the  utmost  se- 
crecy, having  previously  gained  over  the  army  and  the  nation. 
On  the  nineteenth  of  August,  seventeen  hundred  and  seventy- 
two,  he  assembled  the  guard,  dismissed  the  senators,  made  the 
people  of  Stockholm  rise  in  revolt,  and  imposed  on  the  Diet  a 
constitution  of  fifty-seven  articles,  which  guaranteed  the  public 
liberties,  at  the  same  time  that  it  restored  to  the  Crown  its  es- 
sential prerogatives.  He  then  abolished  torture  and  the  State 
inquisition,  shut  up  the  "  cave  of  roses,"  a  hole  full  of  reptiles 
used  for  "  the  question,"  and  set  on  foot  useful  reforms  which 
placed  Sweden,  already  impregnated  with  Prench  ideas,  in  the 
current  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  success  of  this  blood- 
less revolution,  w^hich  doubled  the  real  power  of  Sweden,  and 
put  it  beyond  the  pale  of  foreign  intrigue,  caused  great  morti- 
fication to  Frederic  the  Second  and  Catherine ;  but  the  affairs 
of  Poland  deprived  them  of  the  power  or  will  to  interfere. 

PLAGUE  AT  MOSCOW.  — PUGATCHEF. 

Catherine  the  Second,  victorious  in  Poland  and  in  Turkey, 
found  herself  face  to  face  with  terrible  difficulties  in  her  own 
empire.  In  seventeen  hundred  and  seventy-one  the  plague 
broke  out  at  Moscow,  and  during  the  months  of  July  and 
August  the  deaths  amounted  to  a  thousand  a  day.  The  peo- 
ple, wild  with  fright,  and  bringing  costly  offerings  and  jewels, 
thronged  to  the  feet  of  the  holy  image  the  Mother  of  God  at 
Boffoliubovo,  and  manv  died  of  suffocation  in  the  crowd.  Arch- 
bishop  Amvrosi,  an  enlightened  and  educated  man,  sent  five 
men  to  remove  the  image.  This  was  the  signal  for  a  terrible 
insurrection.     "  The  archbishop  is  an  infidel,"  cried  the  people ; 


198  HISTOEY  OF  RUSSIA.  [Chap.  IX. 

"  he  would  deprive  us  of  our  protectress  ;  he  is  in  a  conspiracy 
with  the  doctors  to  make  us  die.  It  is  wrong  for  the  ortho- 
dox to  suffer  injustice  from  those  above  them.  If  they  had 
not  smoked  up  the  streets  and  the  hospitals,  then  surely  the 
plague  would  have  long  ago  ceased.  To  the  Kreml !  to  the 
Kreml !  Let  us  demand  of  Amvrosi  why  he  forbids  us  to 
pray  to  the  Mother  of  God  !  "  Amvrosi  was  put  to  death, 
and  his  palace  pillaged.  It  was  necessary  to  use  muskets 
and  cannons  to  disperse  the  crowd,  which  was  ready  to  com- 
mit new  deeds  of  violence.  Catherine  in  October  sent  Greg- 
ory Orlof  with  the  skilful  Dr.  Todte  to  appease  the  revolt,  and 
to  reassure  the  people.  At  last  the  plague  ceased,  and  peace 
was  restored.  On  his  return  Orlof  was  received  with  a  tri- 
umphal arch  with  an  inscription:  "To  the  man  who  freed 
Moscow  from  the  plague." 

The  insurrection  of  Moscow  proved  in  what  gross  darkness 
the  lower  classes  of  the  capital,  the  domestic  serfs,  lackeys, 
small  tradesmen,  and  workingmen  then  lived.  The  revolt  of 
Pugatchef  shows  what  elements  of  disorder  were  fermenting 
in  the  distant  provinces  of  the  capital.  The  peasants,  on 
whom  were  laid  the  burden  of  all  the  State  expenses,  all  the 
needs  of  the  proprietors,  and  all  the  exactions  of  the  officials, 
were  foi-ever  dreaming  of  impossible  changes.  In  their  pro- 
found ignorance  they  were  ever  ready  to  follow  any  impostors, 
and  there  were  noAv  plenty  ;  false  Peters  the  Third,  Ivans  the 
Sixth,  and  even  a  Paul  the  First,  who  took  advantage  of  these 
debased  classes,  prejudiced  as  they  always  were  against  "  the 
rule  of  women."  The  raskolniki,  made  wild  and  fanatical  by 
many  persecutions,  remained  in  their  forests  or  in  the  scattered 
villages  of  the  Volga,  irreconcilable  enemies  of  this  second 
Roman  Empire,  stained  with  the  blood  of  the  martyrs.  The 
Cossacks  of  the  laik  and  the  Don,  and  the  Zaporoshtsui  of  the 
Dnieper,  chafed  under  the  yoke  of  authority  to  which  the}'' 
were  unused.  The  tribes  of  the  Volga,  Pagan,  Mussulman, 
or  converted  to  Christianity  in  spite  of  themselves,  awaited 


1762-1780.]        CATHERINE   XL:    EARLY   YEARS.  199 

only  a  pretext  to  recover  their  lawless  liberty,  or  to  reclaim 
the  lands  which  the  Russian  colonists  had  usurped. 

How  little  these  uno-overnable  elements  accommodated 
themselves  to  the  laws  of  a  modern  State  was  seen  when,  in 
seventeen  hundred  and  seventy,  the  Kahnuik-Torgauts,  men, 
women,  and  children,  to  the  number  of  about  three  hundred 
thousand,  with  their  cattle,  their  tents,  and  their  chariots, 
abandoned  their  encampments.  Ravaging  everything  in  their 
road,  they  crossed  the  Volga,  and  retired  to  the  terrritory 
of  the  empire  of  China.  Catherine  demanded  of  the  Chinese 
Emperor  their  return,  but  he  replied  that  they  had  simply 
come  back  to  their  ancient  dwelling-place  and  were  now 
under  his  protection.  When  we  add  to  these  malcontents 
the  vagabonds  of  all  kinds,  the  ruined  nobles,  the  disfrocked 
monks,  the  military  deserters,  fugitive  serfs,  highwaymen,  and 
Volga  pirates,  w^e  shall  see  that  Russia,  especially  in  its  Ori- 
ental part,  contained  all  the  materials  necessary  for  an  im- 
mense Jacquerie,  like  that  which  the  false  Dmitri  or  Stenko 
Razin  had  let  loose.  The  la'ik,  whose  Cossacks  had  risen  in 
seventeen  hundred  and  sixty-six,  and  had  been  cruelly  re- 
pressed in  seventeen  hundred  and  seventy-one,  was  destined 
to  furnish  the  chief  to  this  servile  war.  Emilian  Pugatchef,  a 
Cossack  deserter  and  a  raskolnik,  who  had  been  already  con- 
fined as  a  dangerous  character  in  the  prison  of  Kazan,  and  had 
found  means  to  escape  into  the  steppes  of  the  laik,  gave  him- 
self out  as  Peter  the  Third,  and  asserted  that  he  was  saved 
under  the  very  hands  of  the  executioner.  Displaying  the 
banner  of  Plolstein,  he  proclaimed  that  he  would  march  to 
Saint  Petersburg  to  punish  his  wife  and  to  crown  his  son. 
He  besieged  the  small  fortress  of  laitsk  w'ith  only  three  hun- 
dred men.  This  in  itself  w^^s  an  insignificant  affair,  but  all  the 
troops  sent  against  him  passed  over  to  his  side  and  delivered 
up  their  chiefs.  It  was  his  custom  to  hang  the  officers,  and 
cut  the  hair  of  the  soldiers  in  the  Cossack  style.  In  the 
villages  the  nobles  were  also  hung.     All  who  resisted  him 


,'>00  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA.  [Chap.  IX 

were  punished  as  rebels,  convicted  of  the  crime  of  high 
treason.  He  thus  gained  possession  of  many  little  fortresses 
on  the  Steppe.  Whilst  his  intimate  friends  who  knew  his 
origin  treated  him  when  alone  as  a  simple  Cossack,  the  people 
began  to  receive  him  with  bells,  and  the  priests  to  present 
him  bread  and  salt.  Some  of  the  Polish  Confederates,  captives 
in  those  regions,  organized  his  artillery.  For  almost  a  year 
he  made  Kazan  and  Orenburg  tremble,  and  defeated  all  the 
generals  sent  against  him.  Everywhere  proprietors  fled,  and 
the  barbarous  tribes  hastened  to  his  headquarters.  The 
peasants  rose  against  the  nobles,  the  Tatars  and  Tchuvashi 
against  the  Russians:  a  war  of  race,  a  social  war,  a  servile 
war,  was  let  loose  in  the  basin  of  the  Volga.  Moscow,  Avith 
its  one  hundred  thousand  serfs,  was  agitated  :  the  lower  orders, 
seeing  the  frightened  land-owners  pour  in  from  Eastern  Russia, 
began  openly  to  speak  of  liberty  and  the  extermination  of  the 
masters.  Catherine  the  Second  charged  Alexander  Bibikof 
to  check  the  progress  of  the  scourge.  Bibikof,  on  his  arrival 
at  Kazan,  was  alarmed  at  the  universal  demoralization,  but  he 
rallied  his  courasre,  reassured  and  armed  the  nobles,  restrained 
the  people,  and  affected  the  greatest  confidence,  while  he  wrote 
to  his  wife,  "The  evil  is  great  —  it  is  frightful!  Alas!  it  is 
ugly  !  "  He  thoroughly  comprehended  that  all  this  disorder 
was  not  the  work  of  a  single  man.  "Pugatchef,"  he  said,  "is 
only  a  bugbear  worked  by  the  Cossack  thieves  ;  it  is  not 
Pugatchef  that  is  important,  but  the  general  discontent."  Al- 
though very  uncertain  of  his  own  troops,  he  attacked  the 
impostor,  defeated  him  both  at  Tatishtcheva  and  at  Kargula, 
dispersed  his  army  and  took  his  guns.  Bibikof  died  in  the 
midst  of  his  victories,  but  his  lieutenants,  Michelson,  de  Col- 
longes,  and  Galitsuin,  gave  chase  to  Pugatchef.  Tracked  to  the 
Lower  Volo;a,  he  suddenlv  ascended  the  river,  threw  himself 
into  Kazan,  which  he  pillaged  and  burned,  received  a  check 
before  its  Kreml,  and  was  beaten  on  the  Kaziud^a.  Then  he 
returned  down  the  river,  boldly  entered  Saransk,  Samara,  and 


1762-1780.>       CATHERINE   II.:    EARLY   YEARS.  201 

Tsaritsiiin,  and,  tlioagb  closely  followed  by  his  enemie.s,  had 
time  to  hang  the  imperialists,  and  to  establish  new  munici- 
palities. During  his  retreat  to  the  south  the  people  awaited 
him  on  the  road  to  Moscow,  and,  in  order  not  to  disappoint 
them,  false  Peters  the  Third  and  false  Pugatchefs  sprang  up  on 
all  sides,  and  at  the  head  of  savage  bands  put  proprietors  to 
death  and  burned  castles.  Moscow  was  nearer  revolt  than 
ever.  It  was  time  that  Pugatchef  was  arrested.  Shut  in  be- 
tween the  Volga  and  the  laik,  by  Michelson  and  the  inde- 
fatigable Suvorof,  he  was  pinioned  and  surrendered  by  his 
own  accomplices,  at  the  very  moment  when  he  intended  flying 
into  Persia.  He  was  brought  to  Moscow,  so  that  the  people 
might  witness  his  punishment.  There  he  was  quartered  in 
January,  seventeen  hundred  and  seventy-five.  Many  declined 
to  believe  in  the  death  of  the  false  Peter  the  Third,  and  if 
the  revolt  was  put  down  the  spirit  of  revolt  existed  some  time 
longer. 

It  was  a  warning  for  Catherine  the  Second,  and  she  remem- 
bered it  when  in  seventeen  hundred  and  seventy-five  she 
extinguished  the  Zaporozh  republic.  This  brave  tribe,  ex- 
pelled by  Peter  the  Great  and  recalled  by  Anna  Ivanovna,  no 
longer  recognized  their  former  territory  in  the  I  kraina. 
Southern  Russia,  freed  from  Tatar  incursions,  was  being  rap- 
idly colonized  ;  cities  were  in  process  of  construction  every- 
where, the  boundaries  of  property  were  fixed,  and  the  vast 
herbaceous  steppes,  through  which  their  ancestors  had  roamed 
as  freely  as  the  Arabs  in  the  desert,  were  transformed  into 
cultivated  fields  with  a  beautiful  black  soil.  The  Zaporoshtsui 
were  much  discontented  with  this  transformation ;  they  in- 
tended to  reclaim  their  lands,  and  re-estabhsh  the  desert; 
they  protected  the  haidamaki,  who  ill-treated  the  colonists. 
Potemkin,  the  creator  of  New  Russia,  became  weary  of  these 
inconvenient  neighbors.  By  order  of  the  Empress  he  occupied 
the  setcha  and  destroyed  it.  The  malcontents  fled  to  the  ter- 
ritory of  the  Sultan  ;  the  rest  were  organized  like  the  Black 


202  HISTORY   OP   RUSSIA.  .    [Chap.  IX. 

Sea  Cossacks,  and  in  seventeen  hundred  and  ninety-two  the 
Isle  of  Phanagoria  and  the  eastern  shore  of  the  Sea  of  Azof 
were  assigned  them.  Such  was  the  end  of  the  great  Cossack 
power.  It  no  longer  existed  save  in  the  songs  of  the  kobzarui 
or  mandolin-players. 


DATE  DUE 

«'iM«»jii*»«ji^|  ife^.^)*. 

!(|r*tBi»» 

4HMMP 

► 

lU-l »^*^ 

lir 

CAVLORD 

rniNTEOIKU.S.A. 

